Mercedes Dorame
I Will Shape Shift - 'Akuutet Pexaawro2020

Not on view

No image

Artist or Maker: Mercedes Dorame
United States, Los Angeles, born 1980
Title: I Will Shape Shift - 'Akuutet Pexaawro
Date Made: 2020
Medium: Inkjet print (pigment based)
Dimensions: Primary support: 43 15/16 × 44 in. (111.6 × 111.76 cm) Image: 36 × 36 in. (91.44 × 91.44 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by LENS: Photography Council, 2022
Accession Number: M.2023.43.2
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Mercedes Dorame uses photography to explore, reimagine, and connect to her Gabrielino-Tongva heritage. She has stated, “I am interested in the problematics of living in a place that once belonged to my ancestors, a place I feel connected to, yet have limited access to.” In the series Everywhere Is West, she explores the Channel Islands, part of Tongva ancestral lands, uncovering elements in nature that are culturally significant and speak to the interconnectivity of living beings. This close-up image of native grasses includes a caterpillar, a reference to shape-shifting in the title and in turn to an understanding of the supernatural in everyday life in Indigenous cultures. (For other images in the Everywhere Is West series, see M.2023.43.1 and .3.)

Eve Schillo

2024

Not on view

No image

Artist or Maker: Mercedes Dorame
United States, Los Angeles, born 1980
Title: I Will Shape Shift - 'Akuutet Pexaawro
Date Made: 2020
Medium: Inkjet print (pigment based)
Dimensions: Primary support: 43 15/16 × 44 in. (111.6 × 111.76 cm) Image: 36 × 36 in. (91.44 × 91.44 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by LENS: Photography Council, 2022
Accession Number: M.2023.43.2
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Mercedes Dorame uses photography to explore, reimagine, and connect to her Gabrielino-Tongva heritage. She has stated, “I am interested in the problematics of living in a place that once belonged to my ancestors, a place I feel connected to, yet have limited access to.” In the series Everywhere Is West, she explores the Channel Islands, part of Tongva ancestral lands, uncovering elements in nature that are culturally significant and speak to the interconnectivity of living beings. This close-up image of native grasses includes a caterpillar, a reference to shape-shifting in the title and in turn to an understanding of the supernatural in everyday life in Indigenous cultures. (For other images in the Everywhere Is West series, see M.2023.43.1 and .3.)

Eve Schillo

2024