ISHI
A hybrid feature documentary inspired by the life of Ishi
The Story of Ishi
In August of 1911 a Native-American man mysteriously appeared in the town of Oroville, California. He walked out of the bush, starving, not speaking and visibly traumatized. Town residences, unable to determine where he came from, called in University of California anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and T.T. Waterman who determined the man was from the Yahi people from the Nation of Deer Creek. The man was brought back to the UC campus and given the name “Ishi,” meaning "man" in the Yahi language. As in most history, the story of the Yahi, is tragic. Beginning after the California gold rush in 1849, Ishi’s people were massacred. It is estimated around 1908, Ishi escaped the massacre by hiding in the bush, surviving on his own, lonely, without community and forced to hide from a world now filled with his people’s executioners.
During the next four years, anthropologists and physicians at UC studied Ishi like a specimen, observing his tool making, hunting skills, oral stories and songs. Newspapers referred to Ishi as the "last wild Indian," and the press “marveled” at Ishi's reactions to twentieth-century “technological wonders.” He quickly became a media sensation, treated like a circus side-show.
By December of 1911, Ishi began to suffer from serious health issues and after years of hospitalization he succumbed to tuberculosis in 1916 after living out his final days at the museum of anthropology. Before his death on March 25, 1916, the museum cast his feet. Ishi was terrified of the concept of autopsy as it tears the spirit from the body, therefore before his death, he requested that his body be burned to liberate his soul. While the University did cremate his body, they first performed an autopsy, despite his wishes, and also removed his brain, weighed, examined and preserved it. His remaining ashes were placed in a Pueblo jar in the columbarium of Mount Olivet Cemetery. Regarding his brain, Kroeber writes, "Ishi's brain was sent to the National Museum as a gift with the compliments of the University of California.” The brain was shipped to Washington and accessioned by the Smithsonian. For sixty-four years it was believed to be stored in a ground glass jar in the "Division of Collections" of the Physical Anthropology Labs in the Natural History Building but for a number of years was lost until 1998, when discovered floating in a jar of formaldehyde. This news sparked a two-year struggle by Native American activists and allies to have his brain and ashes repatriated to the closest related relatives remaining in the area of Redding Rancheria with the Pit River First Nations. In August 2000, after a vigorous public effort, Ishi finally made his way back home, back to the forests of Northern California where his body and spirit were wholly and peacefully laid to rest.
Relevance Today
What have we learned as a people from the Ishi saga? Today, there still remains a great divide between us as peoples and Western cultural perceptions of us as “other,” perpetuating a long history of genocide, trauma, dislocation, disrespect, dehumanization, and exclusion that stereotypes fuel the racism, ill-treatment and disparity rooted in much of the suffering of our peoples today. This project is also a way to give voice to Ishi and his story as he had no surviving relations to speak with. This further extends to the many sacred items and bodies that still sit in the museum basements, separated from community, ancestors and land. These are our stories, our objects and our families that remain as specimens for archive, storage and study. While there is a growing movement to repatriate the bodies and objects, many are still guarded, have been desecrated with toxic preservation techniques and are lost in the bowels of the colonial tunnels of museums. Museum archives, protectionist attitudes towards their “collections”, toxic preservation techniques and the dehumanizing presentation of us as objects, stands as a powerful metaphor that speaks to how our people are perceived and treated today. Ishi’s story brings these powerful metaphors to the forefront of the conversation. people and our culture with integrity, innovation and excellence.
In August of 1911 a Native-American man mysteriously appeared in the town of Oroville, California. He walked out of the bush, starving, not speaking and visibly traumatized. Town residences, unable to determine where he came from, called in University of California anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and T.T. Waterman who determined the man was from the Yahi people from the Nation of Deer Creek. The man was brought back to the UC campus and given the name “Ishi,” meaning "man" in the Yahi language. As in most history, the story of the Yahi, is tragic. Beginning after the California gold rush in 1849, Ishi’s people were massacred. It is estimated around 1908, Ishi escaped the massacre by hiding in the bush, surviving on his own, lonely, without community and forced to hide from a world now filled with his people’s executioners.
During the next four years, anthropologists and physicians at UC studied Ishi like a specimen, observing his tool making, hunting skills, oral stories and songs. Newspapers referred to Ishi as the "last wild Indian," and the press “marveled” at Ishi's reactions to twentieth-century “technological wonders.” He quickly became a media sensation, treated like a circus side-show.
By December of 1911, Ishi began to suffer from serious health issues and after years of hospitalization he succumbed to tuberculosis in 1916 after living out his final days at the museum of anthropology. Before his death on March 25, 1916, the museum cast his feet. Ishi was terrified of the concept of autopsy as it tears the spirit from the body, therefore before his death, he requested that his body be burned to liberate his soul. While the University did cremate his body, they first performed an autopsy, despite his wishes, and also removed his brain, weighed, examined and preserved it. His remaining ashes were placed in a Pueblo jar in the columbarium of Mount Olivet Cemetery. Regarding his brain, Kroeber writes, "Ishi's brain was sent to the National Museum as a gift with the compliments of the University of California.” The brain was shipped to Washington and accessioned by the Smithsonian. For sixty-four years it was believed to be stored in a ground glass jar in the "Division of Collections" of the Physical Anthropology Labs in the Natural History Building but for a number of years was lost until 1998, when discovered floating in a jar of formaldehyde. This news sparked a two-year struggle by Native American activists and allies to have his brain and ashes repatriated to the closest related relatives remaining in the area of Redding Rancheria with the Pit River First Nations. In August 2000, after a vigorous public effort, Ishi finally made his way back home, back to the forests of Northern California where his body and spirit were wholly and peacefully laid to rest.
Relevance Today
What have we learned as a people from the Ishi saga? Today, there still remains a great divide between us as peoples and Western cultural perceptions of us as “other,” perpetuating a long history of genocide, trauma, dislocation, disrespect, dehumanization, and exclusion that stereotypes fuel the racism, ill-treatment and disparity rooted in much of the suffering of our peoples today. This project is also a way to give voice to Ishi and his story as he had no surviving relations to speak with. This further extends to the many sacred items and bodies that still sit in the museum basements, separated from community, ancestors and land. These are our stories, our objects and our families that remain as specimens for archive, storage and study. While there is a growing movement to repatriate the bodies and objects, many are still guarded, have been desecrated with toxic preservation techniques and are lost in the bowels of the colonial tunnels of museums. Museum archives, protectionist attitudes towards their “collections”, toxic preservation techniques and the dehumanizing presentation of us as objects, stands as a powerful metaphor that speaks to how our people are perceived and treated today. Ishi’s story brings these powerful metaphors to the forefront of the conversation. people and our culture with integrity, innovation and excellence.
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About Our Team
Dana Claxton works in film, video, photography, single- and multi-channel video installation, and performance art. Her practice investigates beauty, the body, the socio-political, and the spiritual. Her work has been shown internationally at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), Walker Art Centre, Sundance Film Festival, Eiteljorg Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney) and held in public collections including the Vancouver Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Art Bank of Canada, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. She has received numerous awards including the VIVA Award and the Eiteljorg Fellowship. Dana’s film work has been screened at the Sundance Film Festival ( 2009) and received best Grand prix Meilleure direction photo at the 2014 Terres En Vues, and best experimental film at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Festival in 2014.
Her work was selected for the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010), de Biennale Montréal (2007), Biennale d’art contemporain du Havre, France (2006), Micro Wave, Hong Kong (2005) Art Star Biennale, Ottawa (2005), and Wro 03 Media Arts Biennale Wroclaw Poland (2003). She has created commissioned works for the University of Lethbridge Gallery, Alternator Gallery, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Urban Shaman, Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, and Tribe. She has presented talks at the Getty Institute (LA) and the Art College Association (USA) and the Opening Week Forum of the Biennale of Sydney. The Vancouver Art Gallery has slated the fall of 2018 for a solo survey exhibition that will travel internationally.
Claxton was born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and her family reserve is Lakota First Nations – Wood Mountain, located in beautiful southwest Saskatchewan. Her paternal Euro-Canadian grandmother taught her how to harvest and preserve food and her maternal Lakota grandmother taught her to seek justice. Dana is the youngest of four siblings, an auntie, niece, cousin, daughter and god mother.
“Dana Claxton’s work is aesthetically innovative, brilliantly written and expertly paced. The thrust of her practice is political, spiritual and social, making it an essential contribution not only to the field of media art, but generally, to a more honest sense of history.” – Jason St. Laurent, 2002
James Lunais a Pooyukitchchum/Ipai native who presents his stories to share his political and social commentary through performance art. He uses monologues, visual examples, and antics to tell stories that delve deep into the strife and misconceptions of ethnicity in America. With over 40 years of making artwork, James has strived to speak to issues as a citizen of a Native nation and for himself. Historically, his work has explored many social, political and historical issues affecting American Indians and people of color including inequality, violence, economic disparity, alcoholism and other health issues. He approaches these issues in a unique way, going beneath the surface of problems and research speaking to the “cause and effect”. There’s an insider's’ viewpoint to his craft as he refers to his own issues and memories as well as the Indian community, bringing a deep personal narrative to his work.
He is a powerful force in performance art today and has received numerous grants and awards and his performances have toured Internationally. His performances have been sponsored by a range of presenters, including Nippon International Performance Festival (Japan); SITE Santa Fe (Santa Fe, NM), Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, Toronto Free Gallery with Red Sky Performance and imagineNATIVE (Toronto), TRIBE INC/Neutral Ground, (Saskatoon), Paved Arts, (Regina), (Mesa Art Center, Mesa, AZ;), and Humboldt State University (Arcata, CA).
He has received several major awards and grants including the Painters & Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Distinguished Artist Award and the Eiteljorg Museum Fellowship for Native American Fine Art from Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in 2007, US/Japan Creative Artist Exchange Fellowship, from the Japan-US Friendship Commission, the Performing Arts/Emerging Fields production grant from Creative Capital, Andrea Frank Foundation grant, In 2017 Luna received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
In addition, Luna has received media arts grants from the Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium for the production of Bringing It All Back Home in 1995 and a Rockefeller Foundation Intercultural Film/Video Grant of for the production of The History of the Luiseno People-Christmas 1990.
Most notably, in 2005, he was selected as the first Sponsored Artist of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian presented at the 2005 Venice Biennale’s 51st International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy. In 2012 James was awarded Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM
Jeneen Frei Njootli is a Vuntut Gwitchin artis, a founding member of the ReMatriate Collective and sits on the Board of Directors for Vancouver’s grunt gallery. In her interdisciplinary practice she uses media such as performance, sound and textiles. Much of her work deconstructs the history of the materials she uses. She investigates their relationship to trade, ceremonial regalia, and the politics of Indigenous art.
Her work as a contemporary Indigenous artist has been recognized throughout Canada. In 2017, Njootli was longlisted as a nominee for the national Sobey Art Award and shortlisted for the Contemporary Art Society Vancouver Artist Prize. In 2016 she won the William and Meredith Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists. She has completed multiple residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Alberta. For her recent Media Arts Residency at the Western Front, Vancouver, British Columbia, she hosted a free workshop teaching participants how to create and update Wikipedia pages for Indigenous women artists. In 2017, Jeneen Frei Njootli earned her MFA from University of British Columbia as an uninvited guest on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, Sto:lo and Tsleil-Waututh territories.
Heather Haynes has a long history of producing innovative, politically charged projects in visual arts, film/documentary, performance art, music and theatre. Her focus is to present works that deal with social justice and cultural issues to engage and inspire meaningful dialogues with audiences. She is the founder and former executive/programming director of Toronto Free Gallery, a non-profit art space that was dedicated to exhibiting works that focused on social, cultural and urban issues relevant to current times. Through Toronto Free, which ran for 9 years, she worked with 100s of artists curating and exhibiting their work in visual arts, new media and performance, as well organized and hosted talks and theatrical and music events. Along with her curatorial work, she is a Senior International Programmer for Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival and an International Programmer for imagineNATIVE Film + Media Festival and she produced three award winning feature documentaries: Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary, Super Amigos, and City Idol. In 2012, she founded Culture Storm an organization that supports artists in visual arts, performance, music, film, workshops and theatre for artistic visioning, production and touring. Through Culture Storm she has worked with touring comedian Ryan McMahon, James Luna and Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s Pocha Nostra, various production written by Cliff Cardinal, a remount of Kenneth T. Williams’ Thunderstick, co-produced with Setsune Fashion Incubator the exhibition Indian Giver and co-produced Tomson Highway’s Songs in the Key of Cree with Denise Bolduc and Patricia Cano. Upcoming projects include an archival and development project of a one-woman show by Tantoo Cardinal and Producer of Sage Paul’s first Indigenous Fashion Week- Toronto at the Harbor Front Centre.
Dana Claxton works in film, video, photography, single- and multi-channel video installation, and performance art. Her practice investigates beauty, the body, the socio-political, and the spiritual. Her work has been shown internationally at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), Walker Art Centre, Sundance Film Festival, Eiteljorg Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney) and held in public collections including the Vancouver Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Art Bank of Canada, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. She has received numerous awards including the VIVA Award and the Eiteljorg Fellowship. Dana’s film work has been screened at the Sundance Film Festival ( 2009) and received best Grand prix Meilleure direction photo at the 2014 Terres En Vues, and best experimental film at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Festival in 2014.
Her work was selected for the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010), de Biennale Montréal (2007), Biennale d’art contemporain du Havre, France (2006), Micro Wave, Hong Kong (2005) Art Star Biennale, Ottawa (2005), and Wro 03 Media Arts Biennale Wroclaw Poland (2003). She has created commissioned works for the University of Lethbridge Gallery, Alternator Gallery, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Urban Shaman, Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, and Tribe. She has presented talks at the Getty Institute (LA) and the Art College Association (USA) and the Opening Week Forum of the Biennale of Sydney. The Vancouver Art Gallery has slated the fall of 2018 for a solo survey exhibition that will travel internationally.
Claxton was born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and her family reserve is Lakota First Nations – Wood Mountain, located in beautiful southwest Saskatchewan. Her paternal Euro-Canadian grandmother taught her how to harvest and preserve food and her maternal Lakota grandmother taught her to seek justice. Dana is the youngest of four siblings, an auntie, niece, cousin, daughter and god mother.
“Dana Claxton’s work is aesthetically innovative, brilliantly written and expertly paced. The thrust of her practice is political, spiritual and social, making it an essential contribution not only to the field of media art, but generally, to a more honest sense of history.” – Jason St. Laurent, 2002
James Lunais a Pooyukitchchum/Ipai native who presents his stories to share his political and social commentary through performance art. He uses monologues, visual examples, and antics to tell stories that delve deep into the strife and misconceptions of ethnicity in America. With over 40 years of making artwork, James has strived to speak to issues as a citizen of a Native nation and for himself. Historically, his work has explored many social, political and historical issues affecting American Indians and people of color including inequality, violence, economic disparity, alcoholism and other health issues. He approaches these issues in a unique way, going beneath the surface of problems and research speaking to the “cause and effect”. There’s an insider's’ viewpoint to his craft as he refers to his own issues and memories as well as the Indian community, bringing a deep personal narrative to his work.
He is a powerful force in performance art today and has received numerous grants and awards and his performances have toured Internationally. His performances have been sponsored by a range of presenters, including Nippon International Performance Festival (Japan); SITE Santa Fe (Santa Fe, NM), Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, Toronto Free Gallery with Red Sky Performance and imagineNATIVE (Toronto), TRIBE INC/Neutral Ground, (Saskatoon), Paved Arts, (Regina), (Mesa Art Center, Mesa, AZ;), and Humboldt State University (Arcata, CA).
He has received several major awards and grants including the Painters & Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Distinguished Artist Award and the Eiteljorg Museum Fellowship for Native American Fine Art from Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in 2007, US/Japan Creative Artist Exchange Fellowship, from the Japan-US Friendship Commission, the Performing Arts/Emerging Fields production grant from Creative Capital, Andrea Frank Foundation grant, In 2017 Luna received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
In addition, Luna has received media arts grants from the Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium for the production of Bringing It All Back Home in 1995 and a Rockefeller Foundation Intercultural Film/Video Grant of for the production of The History of the Luiseno People-Christmas 1990.
Most notably, in 2005, he was selected as the first Sponsored Artist of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian presented at the 2005 Venice Biennale’s 51st International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy. In 2012 James was awarded Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM
Jeneen Frei Njootli is a Vuntut Gwitchin artis, a founding member of the ReMatriate Collective and sits on the Board of Directors for Vancouver’s grunt gallery. In her interdisciplinary practice she uses media such as performance, sound and textiles. Much of her work deconstructs the history of the materials she uses. She investigates their relationship to trade, ceremonial regalia, and the politics of Indigenous art.
Her work as a contemporary Indigenous artist has been recognized throughout Canada. In 2017, Njootli was longlisted as a nominee for the national Sobey Art Award and shortlisted for the Contemporary Art Society Vancouver Artist Prize. In 2016 she won the William and Meredith Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists. She has completed multiple residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Alberta. For her recent Media Arts Residency at the Western Front, Vancouver, British Columbia, she hosted a free workshop teaching participants how to create and update Wikipedia pages for Indigenous women artists. In 2017, Jeneen Frei Njootli earned her MFA from University of British Columbia as an uninvited guest on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, Sto:lo and Tsleil-Waututh territories.
Heather Haynes has a long history of producing innovative, politically charged projects in visual arts, film/documentary, performance art, music and theatre. Her focus is to present works that deal with social justice and cultural issues to engage and inspire meaningful dialogues with audiences. She is the founder and former executive/programming director of Toronto Free Gallery, a non-profit art space that was dedicated to exhibiting works that focused on social, cultural and urban issues relevant to current times. Through Toronto Free, which ran for 9 years, she worked with 100s of artists curating and exhibiting their work in visual arts, new media and performance, as well organized and hosted talks and theatrical and music events. Along with her curatorial work, she is a Senior International Programmer for Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival and an International Programmer for imagineNATIVE Film + Media Festival and she produced three award winning feature documentaries: Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary, Super Amigos, and City Idol. In 2012, she founded Culture Storm an organization that supports artists in visual arts, performance, music, film, workshops and theatre for artistic visioning, production and touring. Through Culture Storm she has worked with touring comedian Ryan McMahon, James Luna and Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s Pocha Nostra, various production written by Cliff Cardinal, a remount of Kenneth T. Williams’ Thunderstick, co-produced with Setsune Fashion Incubator the exhibition Indian Giver and co-produced Tomson Highway’s Songs in the Key of Cree with Denise Bolduc and Patricia Cano. Upcoming projects include an archival and development project of a one-woman show by Tantoo Cardinal and Producer of Sage Paul’s first Indigenous Fashion Week- Toronto at the Harbor Front Centre.
