First American Girls: Julia is part of a set of three works created by the Chemehuevi photographer, NGO director and community worker, Cara Romero (b.1977).<BR> <BR> The series First American Girls highlights the connection between traditional ecological knowledge and traditional culture, questions of colonisation and contemporary presence. In these photographs the production of anthropological knowledge, and concomitant questions of collecting and display are addressed. They are part of Romero’s larger desire to reckon with the legacies created by these forms of knowledge, often gendered, as experienced and inherited globally through the visual and material culture created and assembled in museums.<BR> <BR> Romero’s visual counter-proposal is to create imagery that recognises the significance of all parts of indigenous life traditional and modern, often to combine them in ways that are clearly staged. In these images the young women are contemporary and named and yet they are at ease in the traditional regalia which, in these images, they have chosen to define themselves as cultural beings. Either as a fancy dancer with a suitcase, as a Yurok woman wearing traditional regalia or a Cochiti woman holding corn. Each woman is surrounded by objects that are deeply connecting in their own mind to their tradition, but also more widely associated with their community. They inhabit a bright space defined by traditional clothing, pottery, jewellery, basketry, foods, belief systems and music. All these aspects are cited, and positioned, in a way that evokes a museum display, but equally in a manner which neither exoticizes nor excizes the person, and in this instance the woman as holder and keeper of certain types of knowledge. This at a moment when the issue of abused, missing and murdered indigenous women in North America continues to be prominent, but in many ways unresolved. Romero’s work, she argues, is about creating a new language and idiom for self-representation, to quietly unravel the layered ways in which that indigenous North Americans have historically been documented and known, as well as shown. Much of Romero’s work contains a theatricality, and this is in acknowledgement of the history of display of objects and people that have defined, and continue to define, the reception of indigenous North America.<BR> Here Romero deliberately posed/placed her subjects, in a model box that was built life size and painted. The objects within the box are at least in one instance family heirlooms, the portraits are of friends. The artifice, colour and contemporary feel of the photographs, create a different relationship with the viewer. Her other desire is to represent diversity within indigenous experiences and histories, which is why this is a series of three works, none a comprehensive image of the whole of indigenous North America. Romero’s work is knowing but not confrontational. She combines her photographic work, with a directorial position in an NGO that looks at indigenous issues across the continent. <BR> <BR> Cara Romero: “With the First American Girls series, I wanted to create dolls and/or action figures that reflect our culture, beauty and diversity as Native American women. One that pays attention to all the details, historical accuracies and accessories. Not just a “pan-Indian” look. Not what you find in a truck stop. Those dolls just never do us justice. It is definitely is a goal of mine to create thoughtful content that makes people think of preconceived notions of Native America, that challenges perceptions, that creates multiple narratives, that all comes from a place of empowerment and celebration – a celebration of resistance."<BR> <BR> "The images are about creating a positive, self-representation of Native women in pop culture settings that we never experienced growing up. Inventing a reality we wish for…it’s a convergence of pop and traditional life ways. Similar to an action figure box in which the figurine bears the garments and accoutrements suited to her role, the dolls wear their respective haute couture with related accessories displayed around them. They convey a reverence for tradition with respect for modern day Indigenous women and identity. They also pay homage to the incredible art and love that go into making the regalia and traditional items modeled by the women.“<BR> <BR> `Naomi'<BR> Cara Romero: “Naomi Whitehorse is the daughter of Leah Mata Fragua. They are from the northern most group of Chumash people, therefore called Northern Chumash. They belong to the land of San Luis Obispo. Leah is a celebrated regalia and traditional arts keeper of California. Many people have little knowledge or exposure to California traditional arts. Leah, Naomi and I worked together to create this photograph that expresses our love of California pop and our deep desire to create critical visibility for the traditional arts and indigenous people of California. This was one of my favorite photographs ... Her doll box includes from bottom left going clockwise: a tule bundle, clapper stick, winnowing basket, mallard, clam shell, and abalone belt, basket hat, and three bristol pinecones on the pedestal.”