The Angelino by River Garza
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2023-03-13T16:06:36+00:00
River Garza is a Los Angeles-based artist who is affiliated with the Tongva indigenous tribe. Los Angeles is now home to the United States’ second largest Native American population after New York, and Gabrielino-Tongva villages were located in the Los Angeles Basin for thousands of years. Garza states his work is “dedicated to the empowerment, recognition and social justice for Tongva Indian peoples.” He views his work as inseparable from his culture and origins, bringing attention to his community and traditions. Garza’s work brings a current and fresh perspective to the historically important indigenous tribes of this area. He works within contemporary Tongva cultural aesthetics, showcasing the beauty, pain, and sacrifice that generations of his people have endured.
"My artistic practice is inseparable from my Tongva heritage. I am an amalgamation of centuries of resistance, forced assimilation, and resettlement and my work reflects those disjointments of memory, tradition, and identity. My practice focuses on how differential treatment under settler governments construct Indigenous identities. I employ physical layers of cultural artifacts in my work, such as oil, spray paint, pen, and Western magazine cutouts which integrate Tongva ancestral iconography and contemporary experiences."
Many of the patterns and gestures seen in his work are also inspired by traditional forms created by the Ti’at Society, a Tongva maritime group named after the traditional canoes used to navigate the Southern California coast and the Channel Islands.
"My work acts as a critique of settler capitalism while exploring how the literal and metaphoric layers of colonialism add weight to contemporary Indigenous identity that is both painful and a source of creativity. Visual sovereignty is another critical aspect of my practice. Due to my tribe’s lack of access to our traditional land base, visual sovereignty, the act of creating work free of the demands of the Western canon, becomes a crucial site for the practice of tribal sovereignty and for the perpetuation of our collective memory. Through artifacts and artificial physical landscapes, I create sites that are sacred spaces and begin to reclaim Tongva sovereignty and provide an imagined future where my people can exercise their full right as original peoples of this land." - River Garza
