Aboriginal Interventions into the Photographic Archives: A Dialogue between Carol Payne and Jeffrey Thomas

Abstract

This collaborative article is structured as a dialogue between Iroquoian artist/curator Jeffrey Thomas and historian of photography Carol Payne. Together we examine First Peoples interventions into the ethnographic photography archive, a cultural formation that has long been perceived as a key site of Aboriginal subjugation. Jeff Thomas' own photo-based and curatorial practice is a focal point of our discussion. In his work, as well as that of several other contemporary Aboriginal figures, the photographic archive has emerged as a key trope. It is examined, not only (predictably) as an embodiment of imperialism but also, more surprisingly, as a site from which to reclaim the native subject. In this respect these interventions enact a cultural negotiation between Aboriginal peoples and the realities of historic colonialism and neo-colonialism, strategies reflecting what Homi K. Bhabha has termed hybridity or cultural translation. The format of this article, a dialogue between an Aboriginal artist/curator and a Euro-Canadian historian of photography, is, therefore, purposeful. While eschewing reductive essentialist readings, we propose this format as symbolic of the dialogue between cultures which has been opened up by such interventions as these recent re-examinations of the ethnographic photography archive.