Haudenosaunee Art Website

How might we create a website showcasing contemporary Haudenosaunee Art with respect to indigenous culture?  

• “Extending the rafters” to a digital space of contemporary Haudenosaunee art
• Digital survey of contemporary Haudenosaunee that emulates metaphorical longhouse does not currently exist
• Addressing harmful stereotypes about Indigenous peoples as primitive or people of the past
• Addressing systemic digital divide and data organization issues

• Transcends geographical and temporal limits for accessibilitMore frequently update to reflect contemporaneity than printed
• Inherent permanence
• Need for more videos and photos of contemporary artists online to assert Haudenosaunee presence in the present and future
• Work to close digital divide and language divide

• Beneficial opportunities for intergenerational exchange of knowledge

     ○ Languages through recordings or dubbed movies

     ○ Social media videos of drumming, dancing, and instructional videos about traditional practices

• Information and communications technologies can be used to assert Indigneous sovereignty and self-determination by assisting with sharing information
• Some incompatibilites with Indigenous traditions to be aware of

     ○ Elders may not have adequate access to Internet on the nation territories where they live

     ○ Disproportionate lack of digital infrastructure in Indian Country compared to other communities across settler spaces like the US

• Nation territories in regions with destructive weather patterns or topography difficult for installing digital infrastructure
• Systemic marginalization and impoverishment make expensive infrastructure more challenging

     ○ Digital divide is tool of settler colonialism to disconnect communities and weaken movements to assert sovereignty

• Google recognizes 30 European languages and one African language and no Indigneous American of Pacific languages

     ○ Perpetuates inequality in information that is shared and learned through disproportionately English space

• Search terms are complicated by dated, Europeanized terms (e.g. “Iroquois” for the Haudenosaunee people) and the use of diacritics for words like Gayogo̱ hó:nǫʔ (Cayuga)

     ○ Use of outdated terms still very prevalent in information organization

• For example, all subject matter in libraries pertaining to Indigneous peoples is found under “Indians of North America” with E call numbers
• A contemporary Haudenosaunee art exhibition catalog is found under an E99 call number rather than around N6490 with all other contemporary art materials
• System isolates Indigneous materials and encourages hegemonic understanding of Indigeneity
• Current Google Images search for “Haudenosaunee” yields images anchored in the past

• Banner images convey three main levels of the world in Haudenosaunee cosmology: the sky, the earth, and the water
• Landing page mixes photos of the artists and a variety of bold artworks in a diverse range of media to influence the user’s perception of Haudenosaunee art
• Font “Red Hat Text” is sans-serif which suggests modernity and sophistication
• Coded from scratch using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for most amount of control possible
• Considers how each artist wants to be represented in a public, digital space

• Rayna Klugherz