Headdress

2018-2019

LED Firebox with transmounted chromogenic transparency

Dimensions: 60 x 40 inches

In her series Headdress, Dana Claxton continues to extol indigenous cultural abundance. The personal collections of five womxn are featured: Jeneen’s collection of beadwork spans three generations from Old Crow Yukon, with designs that are specific to the Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation; Connie, matriarch of beadwork, adorns her own hand beaded pieces; Shadae mixes it up with hip-hop baseball caps, a Coast Salish woven cedar hat, and her husband’s pow wow/peyote fans; Dee and Dana wear pieces of the same inter-tribal collection made by beaders from the four directions. In these portraits, the beadworks cover and espouse the womxn’s silhouettes, becoming more than just objects: the beadworks are cultural belongings, and the womxn are cultural carriers.