In this second decade of the 21st Century, our socio-political moment compels me to reflect on something that concerns and implicates me as an artist. Rather than shy away from it, this is a good opportunity to address it openly. We in the arts are having an important conversation on cultural appropriation. This is the use of content from outside our own heritage, especially in a manner that may be insensitive. With the artist Sam Durant's scaffold at the Walker Art Center and Jeanine Cummins' novel American Dirt, the arts community is struggling to determine the boundaries of the sovereignty of content with all of the seriousness and respect that it deserves. There are elements in my past work that put me on the threshold of that territory and I admit to my own uncertainty.
I think the threshold for tension is where we make presumptions about histories, mores or motivations of others that we do not understand. And many symbols are so deeply imbedded in the ancestral memory of a culture that they should rightfully be reserved for their inheritors.
This becomes complicated in an increasingly multi-cultural, global society. Personally. I have the Elizabeth Warren problem. Like some descendants of early mid-western settlers, my family has a story and a single old photo of a distant Native American ancestor. I am having a serious moment of reflection and listening as enrolled tribal spokes-persons define the difference between bloodline and community. Other than this very thin ancestry, I am unmistakably Northern European, which has its own rich and complicated cultural heritage. Add to this the sometimes messy aspirations of being born an American.
I do not believe that all outside cultural content is completely off limits. Artists have long striven to inhabit a realm of pathos and compassion. The human drama stirs our imaginations to not only think deeply but also feel deeply. Yet, in this heightened environment, it is not always going to be easy to determine where a narrative falls on the spectrum between empathy and sovereignty.
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