by Veronica Cook Williamson and Lindsey Willow Smith
No, not even for Picture: Re-Examining the Native Midwest and Tribes’ Relations to the History of Photography is an online exhibit that seeks to re-historicize and re-humanize the contexts, subjects, and circumstances leading to the production of the Richard Pohrt Jr. Collection of Native American Photography at the University of Michigan’s William L. Clements Library. Using just a handful of photographs from the collection, the exhibit touches on themes of photography as a tool of settler colonialism, photographic assertions of sovereignty and agency, and raises questions about (in)visibility and voice. The exhibit is currently accessible online and features further resources and teaching materials as well. Components of the exhibit are currently being adapted into physical, printable poster exhibit for wide use in flexible exhibition spaces across the Midwest and beyond.