The sky above settler colonialism: Jordan Reznick, ‘Indigenous Space: Hodinöhsö:ni’ Sky World and the Territories of American Art’, American Art, 37, 2, 2023 | settler colonial studies blog

The sky above settler colonialism: Jordan Reznick, ‘Indigenous Space: Hodinöhsö:ni’ Sky World and the Territories of American Art’, American Art, 37, 2, 2023

05Aug23

Abstract: The Hodinöhsö:ni’ Sky World is the realm that gave life to Turtle Island (North America). In contrast, the holy sky exalting U.S.-American landscape art suggests a land created for White settlers. This essay pursues several artists whose engagements with skies provide insights into how worldviews rooted in land shape Indigenous and settler perception: Caroline Parker (Tonawanda Seneca), Shelley Niro (Bay of Quinte Mohawk), Marie Watt (Seneca Nation of Indians), and Alfred Stieglitz. Where a sense of entitlement to Indigenous land guides settlers’ interpretation of the visual world, Hodinöhsö:ni’ women’s visual sovereignty supplies decolonial perceptual alternatives to colonial vision. I also consider the implications of this approach to the study of American art. By discerning the role non-Indigenous American arts play in naturalizing the ongoing theft of land, together with recognizing the unbroken legitimacy of Indigenous Title informing Native artworks, arts discourses might contribute to (re)imagining U.S.-American space as Indigenous space.

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