PRINTA conversation with Sydney Pursel
Artist uses her heritage as inspiration for activist work
KRISTAN LIEB
Sydney Pursel’s interactive piece “The Indian Giver,” sheds light on Native American stereotypes through inauthentic memorabilia.
September 8, 2011 | 12:00 a.m. CST
With her pale complexion, Sydney Pursel might not look Native American, but her artwork speaks on behalf of her heritage. Pursel, 23, is half American Indian — her father is of the Ioway tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. Her heritage fuels her artistic inspiration as she strives to defend her culture and provoke thoughts that question perceptions about American Indians. Her father, who paints and creates traditional-style moccasins for a living, inspired her to pursue art.
Pursel puts a twist on her artwork through her style and choice of medium. She uses interactive and digital art to express the societal issues that American Indians face, such as stereotypes and offensive school mascots.
How do people react when they find out you’re American Indian?
People are always very surprised because I appear Caucasian. My father is native and my mom is Irish, so I don’t look it, but I think being native is more about your personal identity choices than how much American Indian blood you actually have. It’s more about how involved you are with the tribe than what your tribal card says.
What is your artwork like?
When you say you are an art student, people assume you paint or you draw. I actually don’t do either. I do more new media and interactive installations, so artwork that people can actually be involved with and participate in.
What is activist art?
To me, activist art is art that can change people’s ideologies within communities. I try to change stereotypes placed on Native Americans. I try to explain to people through my artwork that things like dressing up as an Indian is disrespectful to natives.
What are some examples of your interactive art?
I have one piece with a claw machine, the things that are filled with stuffed animals. You put quarters in, move around the joystick and then it grabs the toy. I bought one, and I titled it “The Indian Giver”. Then I filled it with all these supposedly Native American objects like sports team memorabilia and cheap dream catchers I found at a dollar store. Most of them are not made by Native Americans whatsoever, but made in China and other places.
Where did you show this piece?
People participated in the game, and I had it in the gallery for the MU Senior Art Show. Now it’s at home. Basically, the point of it was that society has put all these stereotypes into these objects.
Why did you do the digital and more interactive route?
I could get my artwork out into the world easier and more efficiently on a website. People from Hong Kong have even looked at my website; it’s cool.
What is your favorite piece that you’ve done so far?
I have a piece that I really like that is called indianornot.com. It’s set up exactly like hotornot.com, which is where people just vote on whether a person is attractive or not, and I think that’s awful. I made another website that has the same premises. People vote on a scale of one to 10 whether they think the person is Indian or not based on purely their phenotype. When people upload a picture of themselves, it sends them an email with more information about what the website is about.
What is the purpose of your website?
You can’t go to the next picture unless you rate the current picture first. Through forcing people to judge others, they realize there are problems with that. People can look white and actually be native. They could dress native and actually not be. They can’t assume that people are native based on their looks.
What inspired you to work for this cause?
The whole point of art is that it’s a new form of communication. It started when I was taking a painting class, and I had never really thought about having a specific project before. I just drew from my heritage as an artist; I made paintings of Native Americans and native regalia, so it kind of stemmed from my relationship with my father and my background. It’s also my need to have my artwork about something, and then I just became really involved in the process.
Do your friends understand your work?
The problem I face with my artwork is that a lot of these people don’t get what I am saying. Some of my friends would dress up like an Indian for parties or wear hipster headdresses. It’s hard to talk to some of those people about the problems that I see with some of the things that they do and some of the styles they draw from. I feel bad because they are my friends, but I have to throw a fit about it because I don’t believe in dressing like an Indian for fun. There was a genocide 500 years ago, and I don’t think it’s something to celebrate.
What difficulties have you had with interpretation of your artwork?
I’ve had miscommunication through my artwork. Trying to explain these things to these people that you love, like your friends, that what they are doing is against your beliefs has been difficult. It’s hard to find places to show my artwork and a lot of galleries don’t want to see it, which is why I turned to the Internet.
What do you hope your work achieves?
I hope I do change some people’s ideas about what being an Indian is. I want them to look at me and even if I’m completely white, I want them to not immediately dismiss me being an Indian. Even if I was white and had no Indian blood whatsoever, this native issue is something that I am so passionate about that I would feel obligated to talk about it anyway.
