Photographer John Ratzloff tells of the evolution of his exhibition “White Earth, A Portrait”
Posted by admin on March 4th 2008 in artist, exhibitions
Photographs and text by John Ratzloff.
Left photo: Dick LaGarde, 1993, White Earth Indian Reservation , silver gelatin print; lower photo: Harold Good Sky, Bonnie Rock, Ron Kingbird, 1999, White Earth Indian Reservation , silver gelatin print.
White Earth, A Portrait on view at the Bockley Gallery through March 8, 2008.
"On a bright Sunday morning in mid-June, 1991, I found myself sitting in Winona La Duke’s cabin at the shore of Round Lake on The White Earth Indian Reservation in Northwest Minnesota. She cooked broccoli omelets and juggled the multiple duties presented by her two year old daughter Wasyeabin and infant son Ajewak while speaking to me, a complete stranger, a white guy with a camera, about peace, justice, her life’s journey, the grim history of her tribe’s loss of ninety three percent of their reservation land and their struggles to buy it back. This morning was to change the course of my photography and life.
Before this day, despite living and being “educated” in Minnesota for more than forty years, I had never met an “Indian”. I had never heard the word Anishinabe, the name Ojibwa/Chippewa people call themselves. I believed Indians owned their reservations. My ignorance was nearly immaculate.
Today I am privileged to be friends with scores of Anishinabeg on White Earth. Many are like family to me. Today I know more of the real history of this state I call home. In these regards, I am a much richer man.
As I contemplate my White Earth experience over the years of wandering, meeting people and photographing I trace its origins back to the changes which took place in my head and heart when I became a father in 1985, when world peace and a clean, sustainable environment became central to my reason for being.
So it was that early on the frigid morning of January 17, 1991, I found myself sitting in quite another place- on a cement floor, arrested, hands cuffed behind my back, in a Saint Cloud jail for my part in an anti-war protest the day after the United States’ first bombing of Baghdad the night before.
The decision to join the protest was spontaneous. I was on my way to work. A disgust for war, a profound hunger for a peaceful world for my two young children and a nagging guilt for not having been as involved in protesting the Viet Nam war as I should have been caused me to pull my car over, park and join the little group of students, hippies and nuns who stood shivering, arm in arm, blocking entrance to the Federal Building as they quietly but stubbornly faced off with police clad in full, brand spanking new, riot gear. The protest was rapidly snuffed. And, as I thought about it while locked up for the next eighteen hours, with little of genuine significance having been accomplished. I remember feeling powerless and frustrated with how quickly, easily and completely my voice for peace had been silenced…how truly ineffective, even meaningless, my “sound bite” protest had actually been. It was this realization and while sitting in that jail I made two decisions that would, six months later, lead me to White Earth. First, I vowed to never again be so easily and effectively shut down and shut up in quest of peace. Second, that I would actively seek and attempt to reveal peace as an artist rather than to disrupt government business-as-usual, as a protester. Then and there I decided to put my camera and profound hopes for the future to work.
This path began the next week with a simple idea to interview and photograph the most wise and peaceful person I knew, my eighty five year old neighbor, peace activist and friend, Kay Cram. When our session was complete I asked Kay if she would recommend the name of anyone else she thought I ought seek out next. And so, on I went, going from wise, peaceful person to wise peaceful person, asking questions, writing down notes, making portraits and following the advise of each as to who to see next. This uncharted course brought me into the company of quite a remarkable delegation of people; Meridel Le Sueur on her ninety first birthday, Peg Meier- the wonderful story teller and writer for The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Willie Mae White- the first black person to live in Saint Cloud, Gail See- the great book advocate, and a dozen or so others.
When I asked Gail for her recommendation for my next portrait she handed me a newspaper article about a young Ojibwa human rights activist on the White Earth Indian Reservation named Winona LaDuke. “I think you should go see this woman”, she said. Two weeks later I did just that and have not stopped going back.
Today, wars continues to rage, particularly in Baghdad. But if I learned anything during this binge of discovery, it is that peace begins with each individual’s heart and with each of our own peaceful, loving actions. I have learned that what goes on in my house and your house is more important than what goes on in the White House.
Now I am called “a true friend” by some on the reservation. While not world peace, this kindness does, at least, reflect on the life affirming possibilities inherent to an end of personal ignorance and decisions to become involved. My hope for what you see and feel in response to these images is more than an interesting glimpse of history, rather, a love story."
To learn more about White Earth Indian Reservation or Winona LaDuke and the White Earth Land Recovery Project .
