An Exploration of Resilience and Resistance

Gallery hours

Tu–Sa: 12–5 PM; Su&M: closed

An Exploration of Resilience and Resistance is about identity, culture, strength, vulnerability, and love—these images are about resilience and resistance. In this series, Kali Spitzer uses tinytype photography to capture her community of mostly Indigenous and mixed-heritage people, while challenging preconceived notions of race, gender, and sexuality.

Click to download Henri Robideau’s essay “The Photography of Kali Spitzer” (PDF).

Tintype or ferrotype photography was a product of the late 1800s and most popular during the US Civil War. The medium persisted into the twentieth century at fairs and carnivals as tourist photography, and more recently has been revived as novelty or art photography. Tintype was the first real populist form of photography, making photographs available to working-class people. It’s hard to look at tintypes now and not be thrust back into the colonial era, and many of Spitzer’s photographs look like they could have been shot at a rodeo or powwow, retaining that populist leaning. But the artist’s use of this type of photography that is so tied to the colonialist project to produce images of decolonialism and empowerment is subversive and strategic.