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August
2007
 Photographer
and videomaker Victor Masayesva, Jr. (Hopi)
teaches visual arts in Hotevilla, Arizona. Masayesva
began working with video in 1980, initially teaching high school
students to document the oral histories of elders in Hotevilla.
As a videomaker, Masayesva became recognized for his expressive
and experimental style. He was selected for a Media Arts Fellowship
in 1988, the year the fellowships were founded by the Rockefeller
Foundation, and received funding for his film Imagining Indians
during the first Open Call of ITVS in 1991. He has also received
funding from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for
the Arts. In 1995, Masayesva won the American Film Institute's
Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video Artists. Masayesva's
work has been exhibited at museums such as the Art Institute of
Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Northern Arizona,
and the Whitney Museum of Art. His book Husk of Time: The Photographs
of Victor Masayesva was published in 2006 by University of
Arizona press. Masayesva co-edited Hopi Photographers/Hopi
Images. Masayesva received a BA in literature from Princeton
University.
"Growing up I heard and hear again: One day the healing
plants will no
longer grow nor the bright songbirds return. Will we be there
to miss them?
It may be that I already have the healing plants and bright song
birds
in my collection. I will not miss them.
What I will miss is the context in which they exist in our lives.
Communications technology has transported us into ambivalent
existences
where context is only as important as one's cocoon.
I will miss the taste of freshly picked herbs and the pure sound
rising
over the earth."
Screened by NMAI
Selected Bibliography
- Husk of Time: The Photographs of Victor Masayesva.
Author: Victor Masayesva, Jr.. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 2006.
- Hopi Photographers/Hopi Images. Editors: Victor Masayesva,
Jr. and Erin Younger. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1983.
Image credit:
Victor Masayesva, Jr. - courtesy of First Nations\First Features;
Victor Masayesva, Jr. - courtesy of First Nations\First
Features
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