{"id":6399,"date":"2023-08-01T15:54:12","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T22:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portlandartmuseum.org\/?page_id=6399"},"modified":"2023-08-01T15:54:13","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T22:54:13","slug":"auto-immune-response-no-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/portlandartmuseum.org\/the-poster-project\/auto-immune-response-no-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Auto Immune Response No. 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Poster
Will Wilson (American and Navajo, born 1969)\nAuto Immune Response No. 2, 2005\nArchival pigment print\nImage: 33 9\/16 x 64 1\/16 inches\nSheet: 44 1\/16 x 73 1\/16 inches\nMuseum Purchase: Funds provided by bequest of Elizabeth Cole Butler by exchange\n\u00a9 Will Wilson\n2015.105.1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Will Wilson is a Din\u00e9 (Navajo) photographer and multimedia artist who was born in San Francisco in 1969. He grew up on the Navajo reservation, and attended a government-run boarding school in Tuba City, Arizona, through the eighth grade. After attending a private high school in rural northern Massachusetts, he studied photography at Oberlin College in Ohio and later at the University of New Mexico. He is the head of the photography program at Santa Fe Community College in Santa Fe, New Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson\u2019s photographs explore issues concerning Native American identity, land rights, health, and the synthesis of art and technology. His ongoing Auto Immune Response<\/em> series, or AIR<\/em>, began in 2004. The title is a purposeful reminder of the numerous autoimmune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis that disproportionately affect Indigenous peoples around the world. In this long-term photographic series, Wilson himself appears as the imagery\u2019s protagonist, a Din\u00e9 man who faces survival in a post-apocalyptic landscape destroyed by colonization, assimilation, and dangerous extraction of natural resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the Auto Immune Response<\/em> series, Wilson photographs himself in the landscape of the Navajo Nation, located in today\u2019s Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, assessing the environment and rebuilding from the remnants of the past in anticipation of an unknown future that merges ancestral knowledge with technical advances. The Navajo Nation is an important character in these narrative photographs: Native American lands are regularly stripped of their natural resources by the American government as well as by private companies, often causing severe health problems both during and after extraction. Between 1944 and 1986, nearly four million tons of uranium ore were mined on Navajo lands. The toxic heavy metal was used to produce atomic weapons during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union vied for global dominance. More than 500 contaminated mines and many buildings were abandoned when extraction ended, and uranium seeped into the soil and water supply both during and after the four decades of extraction. Uranium can cause birth defects, learning disorders, breathing problems, and multiple types of cancer. Members of the Navajo Nation continue to suffer health effects today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson appears multiple times in each Auto Immune Response<\/em> image, suggesting movement through space and time, rather than a single moment captured by the camera. The uneven borders of the photograph reinforce the multi-moment concept. Wilson wears a respirator, signaling polluted air and an inhospitable atmosphere. In Auto Immune Response #2<\/em>, he appears three times on a ridge overlooking a massive, deep, and stunningly beautiful canyon carved over millions of years. At left, he stands and assesses his surroundings in a seemingly scientific but simple manner, without charts or measuring instruments. Wilson appears twice more, at center left and at the right, seated and gazing out over the canyon. The vast expanse of the canyon and sky, combined with the dramatic shadows cast by the rugged terrain, emphasize Wilson\u2019s solitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In subsequent photographs in the series, Wilson discovers a hogan\u2014a traditional, eight-sided Din\u00e9 dwelling of logs; constructs a hogan out of metal (referring to the mining on Navajo land); and even creates a hogan that serves as a greenhouse, signaling the synthesis of traditional and contemporary technologies as well as survival, nourishment, and hope for the future. Throughout the series, Wilson invites viewers to acknowledge the heritage and tragedies of the past, the turning point of the present moment, and the tenuous but hopeful future of our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussion and activities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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  1. Spend 30 seconds looking closely at this picture. Then, write a list of words describing what you see. Write as many words as you can in one minute. Repeat. Look again, then write again.\n