Auto Immune Response no. 5

Will Wilson, Citizen of the Navajo Nation (Diné), born 1969
Diné (Navajo)
Southwest

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2004

Archival pigment print

3/3

Overall: 44 × 110 in. (111.8 × 279.4 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the William S. Rubin Fund

© Will Wilson Image courtesy the artist

2019.6

Geography

Place Made: United States, North America

Period

20th century

Object Name

Photograph

Research Area

Native American

Native American: Southwest

Photograph

Not on view

Label

The science-fictional, post-apocalyptic future in Auto Immune Response no. 5 alludes to the indelible and harmful effects of uranium mining on Navajo homelands between 1944 and 1986. Artist Will Wilson places himself within this large-scale panoramic photo and invokes the imagery of the Hero Twins, who appear in Diné Bahane’, the Navajo creation myth. Wearing gas masks to protect themselves from the toxic environment, the twins look directly into the camera with bloodshot eyes while an unknown substance streaks down their faces. Here, “autoimmune” suggests that harmful human intervention of the environment is inextricable from equally harmful effects on the body.

In the artist’s words, "Auto Immune Response takes as its subject the quixotic relationship between a post-apocalyptic Diné (Navajo) man and the devastatingly beautiful, but toxic environment he inhabits. The series is an allegorical investigation of the extraordinarily rapid transformation of Indigenous lifeways, the “dis-ease” it has caused, and strategies of response that enable cultural survival."

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

NAS 35, ENGL 32.01, Native American Literature, Melanie Benson Taylor, Spring 2019

NAS 32.01, ENGL 53.02, Indian Killers: Murder and Mystery, Melanie Benson Taylor, Spring 2019

NAS 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2020

NAS 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2020

NAS 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2020

ANTH 55, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Spring 2021

NAS 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2021

NAS 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2021

NAS 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2021

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Sienna Craig, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 12.26, Environmental Justice, Maron Greenleaf, Winter 2022

LACS 80.02/AAAS 90.01/GOVT 84.06, Identity and Power, Lisa Baldez, Winter 2022

GEOG 11.01, Qualitative Methods, Abigail Neely, Winter 2022

ANTH 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Spring 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Geography 40.05, African and African American Studies 28.10, Race, Space, and Nature, Elizabeth Shoffner, Summer 2024

Exhibition History

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–July 22, 2022.

Publication History

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 57, ill. fig. 8.13.

Provenance

Will Wilson Art & Photo LLC, Santa Fe, New Mexico; sold to present collection, 2019.

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