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♪♪

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-We're in beautiful Seattle

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at Solas Gallery
in Pioneer Square.

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When I see the work
on the wall today

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and I look at it,
I think to myself,

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"This is what I wanted to say.

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I wanted these images
to be uncanny and dark."

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♪♪

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I grew up on the
Chehalis Indian Reservation

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in Southwest Washington,
and I have six siblings.

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And my mom and my siblings
still live there.

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I think it was around 2016,

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I started to be curious
about the power

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that dressing up like an Indian
for Halloween had,

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and people being very enraged

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at someone who would dress
as a native for Halloween

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and not be native.
So I started to be curious

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about why those objects
had so much power

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and what was it
about the objects

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that provoked so much emotion.

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And so I decided to consult
the objects themselves.

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I bought them
on eBay and Amazon,

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and started to collect them
and decontextualize them

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in a large black box
and photograph them.

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And so what you're seeing
on the walls right now

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are this five-year-long process
of collecting the objects,

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photographing them,
kind of taking everything away.

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The jerseys don't have
a player in them.

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The headdress is not
at a festival.

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I believe that the way
that indigenous people

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have been viewed or placed
is in the past,

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and as not a present,
modern population.

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And if you place
and keep a people in the past,

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you can make them a myth
and then you can consume them.

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That can be something
you can embody.

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Of course, it's
this ubiquitous activity

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to consume objects
in our world right now.

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I'm curious more
about what it would take

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for someone to wear them
than to buy them,

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and when they wear the objects,
what place they go to,

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when they're wearing
the objects,

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what sort of
unconscious thoughts

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that they're expressing

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through the purchase
and donning of the objects.

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[ Indistinct conversations
in background ]

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Whenever I do something
that is important to me,

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I have to invite my ancestors
to be there with me.

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I owe them their presence.

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Thank you for being here.

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And then I also
have to consider

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the people
that will come after me.

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Otherwise, you're going to
make a mess of things.

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[ Chuckles ]

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It would be impossible to be
an indigenous person

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making contemporary work
about indigenous identity

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without being political.

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But my hope is
that it pushes the boundaries

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of how we think
about each other,

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and it works more towards
a space of reconciliation

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that we're working together
to understand each other.

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We've been here
for thousands of years,

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and then thousands of years
after I'm gone,

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we'll still be here.

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And I also believe
that we will last a long time

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with the things that we can
teach and make and create,

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that our culture
is going to last forever.

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♪♪

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-"Object/Ritual" runs now
through January 2024

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at Solas Gallery

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and opens at the
Suquamish Museum in May 2024.

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Explore more of Selena's work
at selenakearney.com.

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♪♪

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Catch Art Zone Friday
nights at 8

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and anytime online at
SeattleChannel.org/ArtZone

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♪♪