Zig Jackson, China Basin Toxic Dump, from the series Entering Zig’s Indian Reservation, 1997, gelatin silver print
About Zig Jackson and Entering Zig’s Indian Reservation
Zig Jackson (Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara) uses photography to de-mythologize his own history and to break down the misguided and romanticized stereotypes of Indigenous people perpetuated by popular media and folklore.
After attending the photography program at the University of New Mexico, Jackson moved from rural New Mexico to San Francisco in the late 1990s, an experience he later described as profoundly alienating. He articulated his feelings of isolation and the need to claim a space for himself in this series of silver print photographs titled Entering Zig's Indian Reservation.
Each photograph was taken at a well-known site around San Francisco where Jackson stood next to an official looking sign with the words, "Entering Zig's Indian Reservation," followed by a list of rules such as: "Private Property - Open Range Cattle on Highway: No Picture Taking, No Hunting, No Air Traffic, New Agers Prohibited - without permission from Tribal Council." Under Jackson's direction the photographs were taken by anonymous bystanders.
How does this series make you think about the land, ownership, and belonging?
Zig Jackson, Buffalo Enclosure, Golden Gate Park, from the series Entering Zig’s Indian Reservation, 1997, gelatin silver print
“Every year, during summer vacations, I would live in my VW van and go to Indian Tribal reservations and think and take pictures and visit with Tribal peoples. The series came out of that. I began to wonder: why can’t I be my own Indian?; why can’t I be my own medicine man?; why can’t I have my own reservation? In the 1960s-1980s the government implemented a relocation program. They would take Indians off of the reservations and put them into major urban areas. It was a divide-and-conquer technique. They would take us off reservations and put us in Indianapolis and Chicago and Denver, Pittsburgh and Cleveland and the Bay Area, but we didn’t forget our way of life. It just made us stronger. I went to the San Francisco Art Institute, where performance art was prevalent. “Entering Zig’s Indian Reservation” was a kind of performance piece. Sitting in Golden Gate Park with William Randolph Hearst’s buffalo. Going out into the streets or standing on the highway and reclaiming that land as ours. When I take photographs, I want to express thanks to the land, and so I place some tobacco down to say I’m honored to be there. I give respect to the tribal California Indians. You can feel that energy. ”
Zig Jackson, City Hall, San Francisco, Ca., from the series Entering Zig’s Indian Reservation, 1997, gelatin silver print
“As a Native artist in contemporary America, I intend my work to be both provocative and educational—carrying an especially urgent message. In one sense, it is intensely personal; yet, in another—by virtue of my background and Native roots, as part of an Indigenous group struggling for autonomy in the shadow of a dominant one—my work cannot escape an implicit politicism.”
Zig Jackson, Golden Gate Headland from the series Entering Zig’s Indian Reservation, 1997, gelatin silver print