Vooraanzicht van een Cherokee jongen met rossig haar en sproeten, die met zijn gezicht tegen een blauwe bank aanleunt en serieus de camera inkijkt.

Cuny Janssen, 2008

Bartlesville, OK, USA, 2008, William Scott Burks

Created by Cuny Janssen in 2008. The artwork is a c-print and displayed at 36 x 29 cm.

How does the scarred history of Native Americans relate to the world of their youngest generation? This question led photographer Cuny Janssen to travel to Bartlesville, Oklahoma (USA), home to the Turtle clan from the matriarchal Delaware tribe. For her project, My Grandma was a Turtle, Janssen photographed children with Native American roots and the environments in which they grow up, trying to capture the connection between the two. Critical of the stereotyped representation of Native Americans in popular media, Janssen portrayed the children and their environments in an uninhibited way.

This resulted in a series of intimate portraits, such as the one of William Scott Burks, exploring the relationship between culture, society and upbringing.

© Cuny Janssen, courtesy of the Foam Collection

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Bartlesville, OK, USA, 2008, William Scott Burks