Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People), 1992

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Jaune Quick-to-See Smith serves on a silver platter the perceived Native American identity and asks the audience to realize that what you may know about her community is actually due to white privilege that fostered nothing but lies. In response to the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s unwanted arrival in the Americas, Smith retaliates against the notion of any goodness America might attribute to his legacy. Instead, she puts forth the pillage, carnage, and devastation of the Native American identity that started with Columbus to ingrain the reality that what is depicted is not the identity of her people. What is depicted is a history of the misinterpretation of Native cultures, practices, and beliefs and holds the viewers accountable for ever believing in some or all of the stereotypes.

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