American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The articulation and advancement of a qualitative (and some might charge imaginative) approach to contemporary Native arts criticism characterized by attention to the body, the experience of belonging, and the implications of these attributes for collective memory and place by way of blood reckoning reflects indigenous collective thought and political realities in meaningful ways. Blood relationships reference not only biological heritage or race but also, in an expanded sense, the internalized memories of communal history, knowledge, and wisdom. Blood memories are powerful political tropes mobilized to call attention to the legacies of colonialism in contexts as diverse as battlefields, boarding schools, and sacred sites. This common tribal value of multigenerational remembrance runs directly counter to prevailing Western traits of individual achievement, lack of transgenerational memory, and transcendence of one’s genealogical fate and place of origin. Drawing from the work of documentary filmmaker and theorist David MacDougall, the author explores the possible philosophical and emotional dimensions of audience reception and its impact on the Native arts world. MacDougall’s use of corporeal knowledge imparted by the gaze is useful for highlighting lens-based artistic practice, the power of biography, and the curatorial strategies of embodiment, including the senses, possession, and emotional connections among subject, maker, and viewer. Examples of work featuring Chippewa filmmaker Marcella Ernest and Ho-Chunk photographer Tom Jones are mobilized in an effort to illuminate these theoretical implications.