Collaborating with the past

The photographs in this, the first UK exhibition of American ambrotypist Shane Balkowitsch's work, have been selected from a recent acquisition by the Pitt Rivers Museum of forty original plates.

Balkowitsch has set out to create one thousand portraits of Native American people using this historical wet plate photographic process, and to collaborate closely with each sitter on their photographs.

Many of the participants are from the Lakota community of North Dakota, with whom Balkowitsch has a close connection. Another community that Balkowitsch has worked with closely is that of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) of North Dakota. To mark this relationship, in 2018 Balkowitsch was bestowed the name Maa’ishda tehxixi Agu’ashi (Hidatsa) – the ‘Shadow Catcher’ – by Calvin Grinnell (Running Elk).

Ambrotype photographs are unique objects – there is no negative, or rather, this is it. Instead, the photograph is made by exposing an image through the camera onto a glass plate prepared with light-sensitive chemicals. The resulting negative, when viewed by reflected light against a black background, appears as a positive; the clear areas look black, and the exposed areas appear relatively light. 

This is called wet plate photography, since the light-sensitive chemicals are poured onto the glass plate shortly before being used. The resulting photograph was also called an ambrotype (‘imperishable picture’), and was popular from the mid 1850s until the 1870s when it was gradually superseded by less cumbersome processes. This was the method used to make many of the first portraits of Native American people, at a time when it was assumed that they would not survive the aggressive expansion of settler states.

Portrait of He-kha'-ka Ma-ni (Running Elk), 1858, by the James E. McLees Studio, Washington DC. Made using the wet plate negative process. [PRM1998.128.4]

Portraits like this one of He-kha'-ka Ma-ni (Running Elk), a Yankton Sioux man, were taken by professional photographers in their studios when tribal delegations came to sign treaties in Washington DC, in the winter of 1857. Most of the treaties they signed ceded territory to the US Government. The Yankton Treaty for instance, signed in April 1858 between the United States government and the Yankton Sioux (Nakota), ceded most of eastern South Dakota to the United States government, and created a small reservation for native people.

Whilst many people view such images today as coming from a time of violent settler expansion and when racist views about the native population held sway, this exhibition and the voices of those Native Americans who have worked with Balkowitsch give another perspective on this visual history, one that sees them also as treasured images of ancestors who show their dignity and courage in the face of terrible circumstances. It is this understanding of the importance of these valued historical images that each person brings with them to Balkowitsch's studio, as they collaborate with the past to create a new portrait.

As Margaret Yellowbird-Landin, one of Balkowitsch’s partners in this work, says:

 

These images show that we are a people that could not be erased from this earth. They are for our future generations to see we are still here, we are strong, we are humble, we are pitiful, we are honored, we are grateful, we are indigenous, we are unified.

 

 

I am beside myself.  This life, this journey has been a long road with its own twists and turns. It has never been anything I would have expected. Life has taken some of the most important people in my life. I pray for the strength to endure this heartache. It makes those I love that much more valuable. I cannot imagine my life without my children and nieces and nephews (blood and adopted). They've given my life purpose. I live my life so that I may hold my head high in the next life among our ancestors; that I will be able to say I did my best.  We stand together out of love for our people, land, waters, the very lives that cannot voice their opposition – the trees, birds, the swimmers, the four legged, all creation that has every right to exist and be sustained by this world. Our love crosses the span of seven generations as we make the best decisions that we can with them in mind. What kind of life will they have? What will their quality of life be?

 

Floris White Bull (Brave Heart Woman) and Gloria White Bull (Makes the Road Woman)

Hunkpapa Lakota nation

Photographed 19 April 2019