The Urban Indian Series is a comment on personal identity and cultural commodity in today's contemporary culture. As a Blackfoot person growing up across the prairies of Canada, I experienced many different cultures and the social boundaries we place on identity. I wanted to use regalia as a way to create dialogue and question what it is to be a First Nations person today. What is my culture vs. the mainstream understanding of Native Peoples? The regalia acts as a catalyst in this image, breaking up the sea of mundane western garb. I wanted to use my regalia for a different function other than dancing but as a representation that is apart of my everyday, much like my culture and questioning the suggestion that I am out of place in a world that only identifies with conformity. Jarusha and I have created works that speak on several levels that question ideas of Tradition, Identity and Culture that is often negated or replaced by western cultural standards. The relationship between Photography and Aboriginal Identity has been explored for an estimated 150 years, as artists had spent many years capturing the Image of the "Indian", in portraiture and regalia. We wanted to speak about this relationship in a contemporary environment and comment on the view that mainstream culture has on First Nations People.

Terrance Houle