My project Native Light is a tribute to my indigenous heritage and includes traveling to five to seven different Reservations to teach Photography via cell phone art with additional grants from Apple to each reservation to have them document their way of life including their spiritual, artistic, lineage based blessings and challenges including documentation of the dire conditions of some reservations and including the personal and socioeconomic conditions each reservation has to face. I will also be having each resident and student who participates in my photography workshops where I will be both teaching photography and creating a safe space to discuss the residents concerns, focal points of pride including Fancy Dancing and Pow Wows participation, each reservation’s unique arts contributors and language and culture including heavier themes such as generational alcoholism and even abuse yet the project seeks to shine a positive light on the powerful contributions each reservation offers in addition to each of their personal and social experiences and challenges. I will be visiting 5-7 reservations and creating a traveling exhibition of photography celebrating each perspective reservation culminating in a powerful exhibition where the public at large can have the opportunity to view the way of life, the artistic and cultural contributions of each reservation and the challenges that each of them face. The reservations to be visited are The Cherokee Nation (my personal heritage), The Lakota Sioux and Pine Ridge Reservation, The Navaho, The Choctaw and the Blackfoot Reservations. This ambitious project is a projected to be a five year project culminating again in a National Exhibition hopefully through the Smithsonian museum.
Learn More: https://www.camillerossnativelightphotography.com