Fine arts

My research into Et'sehch'i, the Traditional Dene Burial Practices, is a comprehensive study into how smaller groups, clans, of our northern Dene understood and handled matters of funerals. The research focuses on the Dene community of Radelie Koe, Fort Good Hope in the Northwest Territories of Canada, my home community. In these Pre-Contact times, there weren't any of the modern tools we are now familiar with. The dead were interred on outdoor stages, raised platforms.

The most important part of Et'sehch'i involved the matriarch or another Elder of the clan hand-picking individual youths to help keep the Community together. They kept together as a group, going around together, cutting wood for people, hauling water or ice and generally reinstalling joy into the People's lives. Another form of these coming-of-age ceremonials involved young girls becoming women. The research involves the ways in which the Dene handled anything to do with major changes throughout our history. It was mandated by the Elders Council and Band Council of Fort Good Hope and followed a community protocol of respect for culturally sensitive material. These traditions, following ethical standards, account in good part for our survival from a time we call "When the World was New", from dinosaurs to today's computers.

Keywords: Dene Community, Burial Practice, Et'sehch'i, Ceremony, Funeral, Youth, Painting, Ceremonial Practice, Ways of Being

Author Keywords: Burial Practice, Ceremony, Dene Community, Et'sehch'i, Funeral, Painting

Since 1979, photographer and sociologist Camilo José Vergara has taken repeat photographs of American cities in decline, focusing on evolving landscapes of postindustrial decay. Vergara's images subscribe to an aesthetic of ruin while providing a record of America's crumbling ghettos rooted in social documentary concerns. Vergara's work diverges from the ahistorical tendencies of contemporary ruin porn photography: by challenging the photograph's temporal stasis Vergara bears witness to the ongoing reality of disenfranchisement, assembling an archive that takes up the Benjaminian task of doing history in images. Vergara's photographs challenge standard photojournalistic portrayals of violence, particularly the ways in which `violent' African American and Hispanic inner city populations have been erroneously cast as the cause of their own economic misfortune. The Invincible Cities website assists Vergara in drawing attention to forgotten places but also complicates his mandate to engage outside viewers by distancing them from the real-­world environments his photographs portray.

Author Keywords: Camilo José Vergara, imagistic history, postindustrial decline, repeat photography, ruin porn, Walter Benjamin