SARAH SENSE
CHITIMACHA/ CHOCTAW
To read an expanded version of the wall label text in the exhibition, please click on the images below.
GONE WITH HIM 6
“Because I was from California, with mixed racial background, living in New York, I wanted to play with all of these identities. It was easy to buy Native-influences fashion pieces and accessories in New York, so I decorated myself with non-Native things to play into the ridiculousness of appropriation and stereotyping. The first photoshoots of my personas were taken by myself playing the two characters: Cowgirl and Indian Princess.”
-Sarah Sense
GONE WITH HIM 5
"Scarlett is a strong woman who fights back but is still taken. I found it strange that even the film's poster was of him hovering over her. In the series (Gone with Him), the Cowgirl takes her gun to fight back. The Cowgirl is woven into Scarlett to empower her and then shoot Rhett.”
-Sarah Sense
GONE WITH HIM 4
“Myself and so many Chitimacha people, we don’t know how [to weave] . . . . I had to reflect and try to retrace those steps back [to create these weavings], without using memory, with using imagination . . . . Weaving has been my most natural process of communication . . . . This is my connection to the Chitimacha Tribe. This is real.”
-Sarah Sense
GONE WITH HIM 3
“Cowboy and Indian iconography is such a big deal in the United States. This idea of the great Southwest, the plains, the tipis, we know it’s a little ridiculous. So many Native contemporary artists are kind of commenting on that ridiculousness. A lot of it has to do with reclaiming.”
–Sarah Sense
Artist Website and Portfolio
Sarah's Blog
NPR Article, featuring Sarah Sense
