Following the Footprints of Edward S. Curtis: A Tale of the Vanishing Race

Abstract

In 2007, Marie Clements, a Canadian playwright, was asked to prepare a play about the cultural history of Canada. She decided to write a play about Edward S. Curtis, the author of an epic series of photographic works titled The North American Indian, published between 1900 and 1930. Clements invited to the project Rita Leistner, a Canadian photographer, who was responsible for the graphic aspect of the play. Her task was to recreate the way taken by Curtis while immortalizing scenes from the life of the indigenous peoples. Both artists took a fascinating journey following the footsteps of Curtis documenting today’s presence of the First Nations in the United States and Canada. This article, based on the project of Clements and Leistner, discusses the ambiguity of the medium of photography, one which ‘recreates’the reality and at the same time allows the authors to‘create’ it. It presents three basic themes: the mission and work of Edward S. Curtis; the play titled The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story by Marie Clements; and the photographs – prepared by Rita Leistner – which were used in play and then published in the book of the same title. The purpose of this text is to present the project of the Canadian authors in the context of visual sociology and anthropology, and to show the potential of photography as a means of building social discourse and creating a narrative of a specific community. It is founded on the assumption that the artistic project in question – based on (both passive and active) participation of the authors in the everyday life of the community presented in it – becomes a source of valuable research material, which can then be subjected to scientific interpretations.