19 Degrees Below the Horizon is a found-imagery collage series investigating Native American culture, the media, and the effects of public representation as perceived by the artist. Focusing on the artist's own heritage, the images picked for the collage combine a perspective of personal discovery and public projection through the medium of archived photos spanning a range of editorial, historical, and popular culture references emanating a narrow, repetitive stereotype.

Native American culture throughout the United States and Canada (as well as the rest of the world) has been pushed through a very narrow path made by colonization, misinformation, and lack of any information entirely. Image archives, like the one at the Toronto Reference Library and basic public-access research sources, have a limited scope of Native culture and through these forms, the artist investigated these self-reflexive and socially (mis)understood concepts.

The quality and quantity of these misconstrued images was apparent as the artist began looking through the archives and research sources and found patterns regarding media representation, public understanding, and internal understanding of theses relationships; this made it difficult to navigate away from her position on the outskirts of this culture.

This series shows the preliminary investigation to discovering the vast beauty and knowledge the artist's own culture possesses and brings forth topics around universal spirituality, the effects of colonization upon the planet and Western cultures, water crisis, the afterlife. The series will eventually evolve to discuss a wider range of issues through research progression and as current issues rise closer to the surface.

The way in which society grows is greatly credited and controlled by printed and televised media, whether it is represented directly or subliminally, and has the ability to unite and divide the human race. For one reason or another, Natives have suffered greatly both physically and historically through racism and ignorance towards their ways of working with the Earth and all its inhabitants. 19 Degrees Below the Horizon barely scratches the surface of issues faced by this nearly-forgotten culture, however the final images are meant to instill a new perspective; to shed light upon respecting Native American lifestyle and its prevalence within current Western and global relations. 

© 2016 Kaya Blaze Kelley

The images used to make these final collages were obtained through the Toronto Reference Library Image Archive and therefore were not my own. I do not claim their ownership, however I use them to enlighten upon their subjectivities, their specifics, in the new form of collage. The final images are my own re-imaginations.