Pursue This Discourse Instead: Deconstructing Settler Colonialism and Climate Change Through Art
For those who are forgotten.
While I cannot represent or speak on behalf of Indigenous artists, individuals, and the defining policies withstood even through today, I can hope to honor their stories and their works through conversation and revelation. This exhibition takes these initiatives and transforms them into a working space that asks you to confront these issues directly. Ultimately my hope for these prints is to direct your attention to themes of settler colonialism, westernization, systematic oppressions, and imperialistic policies. One could make the connection that the active denial of present issues such as climate change and the cultural and physical genocides invoked through U.S. policies is engaged once a visual confrontation is initiated.
Because of my intention of people reading my artwork through the lens of settler colonialism, I hope to encourage a conversation about the erasure of instances such as the North Dakota Access Pipeline, the relocation and removal of Indigenous peoples throughout the centuries, and the absolute genocide that resulted from Christopher Columbus’ arrival into the “New World.” I urge you, viewer, to pursue a discourse that brings to light these themes and to start conversations on acknowledgement, visibility, understanding, and hope for a better future for these marginalized groups and as such, for the Earth.
Carolyn Webster ‘19
Advisor: Marina Mangubi
All images copyright © 2019 Carolyn Webster. All rights reserved.
Layered Erasure. Woodcut on Kitakata, repurposed woodblocks. 96" x 108". 2019.
DISCOVERY, None, All The Peoples And The Earth. Charcoal, branches, paper. 18" x 60", 8" x 8", 18" x 20". 2019.
Limbs 1-6. Charcoal rubbings on Kitakata paper. 60" x 18". 2019.
Genocide, #NoDAPL, Othered. Woodcut, charcoal, collage, paper. 10" x 9", 20" x 20", 8"x 8". 2019.
All The Peoples And Earth. Charcoal statehouse rubbings. 18" x 20". 2019.
Genocide, #NoDAPL, Othered. Woodcut, charcoal, collage, paper. 10" x 9", 20" x 20", 8"x 8". 2019.