Stephen Paul Jackson
Bio: Stephen Paul Jackson worked as a visual artist based in Alaska as Stron Softi, with solo exhibitions at the Alaska State Museum and the Anchorage Museum, and exhibiting in Zurich and Brussels, before pursuing his undergraduate education in New York. He obtained a BA in Art History and Visual Arts from Columbia University in 2013.
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement:
From land back, ground back, to background?
We hold these.1 Evidently, there aren’t very many of us left, i testify, but who are we?
Forensics.2 Sick of homesick, ingestion discourse3 we swallowed you. Who can consume who? Hello Indigenati.4 Now.5 What? Looking Glass6 is rising. Red Quantum7 I hear you. My8 people, let us return our9 gift, we can share. You. You can put us on again.10 Bite us. But with love.
“When it kept on, kept on, kept on, kept on happening,
[negotiators] went between them with their masterless atóow.”11
“Tlél xát ax sh kalneegée yé ... Ách áwé xwasi- kuwu yáx yatee ... Aaá yéi.”12
We are preparing.
1 Jefferson et al. in the Declaration of Independence, continues: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the in- habitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” King George. Outside brought the inside.
2 Vs. Testimony. Least of all Possible Evils. Weizman are we convinced?
3 Beyond assimilation policy.
4 To be determined.
5 What time is it?
6 Looking Glass, died in battle. Complicity. Not referring here to Glass “A Cannibal in the Archive” 2009, but I’d like to now. George Hunt awé.
7 Formerly Blood Quantum.
8 Possesive non exclusionary Property, beyond a Lockean proviso. Affinity.
9 Sharing, Scaring? Eagle down.
10 Improved Order of Redmen. redmen.org, and Louis Henry Morgan. Wear us.
11 Anóoshi lingít aaní ká= Russians in Tlingit America: battles of Sitka, 1802 and 1804 / edited by Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer, and Lydia T. Black. (Sally Hopkins p. 361)
12 “This is not my story... That is why it’s like I know it ... Yes, that’s how.”Anóoshi lingít aaní ká, (Alex Andrews p. 346)