Crow Hands, Crow Objects

Wendy Red Star is a theorist of skin. As an Apsaalooke (Crow) artist born in Montana and now based in Portland, Oregon, she thinks expansively about how skins have been depicted across her wide-ranging practice, including humorous skewerings that critically reassess misconceptions around Native identity from a distinctly feminist, Indigenous perspective. Incorporating sculptural and installation elements, she uses photography as a pivotal component in her cross-disciplinary work to center Indigenous experiences, turning precisely to historical representations of Native peoples by white photographers to recuperate formerly silenced narratives and voices.

Red Star is also keen to give visibility to moments of defiant Apsaalooke self-representation (2017), she stitched together an array of found images of the annual Crow Fair——