Auto Immune Response no. 5

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