Wind River 1997

Editor: This is Bremner Benedict's "Wind River," a black and white photograph. It has a dreamlike quality with the tepees and the stag. What story do you think it's telling? Curator: The distortion in the photograph, almost like looking through a fractured lens, speaks volumes. How does it make you feel when you consider that photographs of Indigenous people were historically used as tools of colonial power? Editor: I hadn't thought of that. It does change things. Curator: Consider the power dynamics at play. Who is framing the narrative? Benedict’s lens, while perhaps attempting to capture a landscape, inevitably participates in this history. Can photography ever truly represent a culture without perpetuating harmful stereotypes? Editor: So, it's less about what is shown, and more about who is doing the showing and why. Curator: Exactly. The photograph becomes a site of inquiry, a space to question representation itself and the photographer's own position within these complex histories. Editor: I’ll definitely look at photographs differently now.