a collective blog by indigenous women photographers
"Vulnerability is allowing yourself to be unapologetically Black, unapologetically Indigenous. To operate in multiple planes of thought. To use slang and Ebonics in one sentence, and to speak eloquently in the next. It is accepting your paradox and embracing it with your whole self. To allow your boundaries to be the only lines that define you, to be multi-dimensional in your healing."
"I would wander into the night and find the best location to capture these dancing lights. It made me feel free going out into my little Rez and seeing these lights in the sky, so peaceful and vibrant. I would often think about my grandfather saying, “don’t whistle, they’ll grab you,” and giggle to myself."
"This is where my girl was surrounded and loved up by about a hundred Indigenous women from all walks of life. The room was filled with inspiration, many big laughs, lots of love, and above all else – the strength, beauty and resiliency that only Indigenous women carry."
"Simultaneously, like in a dream, I hear both laughter and crying, coming from different parts of the big, curved room. No, it is not a dream. Today, we are laying a community member to rest."
"We know that survival and grief are never finished. We know that a mother’s scream is a battle cry. We know that it is our responsibility to stand up."
"We are continually made out to be an inconvenient truth for sharing our thoughts or our feelings during difficult political times."
"I came out as a transgender man at 29. For me, this felt late. I remember the first moment I ever said it out loud. I was sitting with one of the first trans men I'd ever met in the shade of a truck at our summer ceremonies in Montana."
"I feel like a mama bear that’s just waking up after a long hibernation, hungry and yearning for more. " - Shayla Snowshoe
When you experience an upmost connection to these elements, you do not want to disrupt or conquer. There is an interrelationship between the land and us: we should not see ourselves as greater than the land, and we should not have a desire or intend to dominate the land. This experience was wâhkôhtowin.
In my mind’s eye, I see a reality in which exists an explicitly Black, Indigenous and Person Of Colour (BIPOC) owned club where everyone is truly welcome and able to explore their sexuality via accessing and providing sex work in the ways that feel safest and most uplifting to their spirits.
