Talk: Contemporary Portraits of Native Americans by James Cook, part 2

Holland Museum

Photographer James Cook discusses his work featuring Native Americans from around the country.

Out of an abundance of caution, this program has been moved to Zoom. The Zoom link will be sent to all program registrants the day before the program by email.In celebration of the museum’s new exhibition, hear photographer James Cook discuss his work featuring Native Americans from around the country embracing their heritage and forming relationships with those tribal communities.Wounded Knee-A Photo Documentary of Life on the ReservationWounded Knee, South Dakota is best known for the 1890 massacre of nearly 300 Lakota men, women, and children by the US Army. The 1980 Census identified Wounded Knee as the poorest community in the United States. It remains so.From 1984 to 1991 James Cook documented life in Wounded Knee. His project was featured in a national PBS broadcast and is included in the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian. Jim will show a selection of the images and discuss the experiences behind them.James Cook-BioFollowing graduation from Southern Illinois University with degrees in both Photography and Journalism, James Cook started his career as a freelance photojournalist in Denver, Colorado. His first client was the Associated Press, where he learned to work under very short deadlines and to recognize what was of national versus local interest. For the next few decades, Jim covered the Rocky Mountain region, writing and shooting for Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Forbes, The Washington Post, The LA Times, and many others. Corporations often hired him to bring his editorial style to their marketing and annual reports.During those years Jim served as a board member and a national officer of the American Society of Media Photographers. In that role, he worked to influence business standards for professional photographers and copyright legislation, including testifying before the U.S. Senate.In 1984 Jim began his photo documentation of contemporary Native American life, which continues today. His portraits of the people of Wounded Knee, South Dakota gained national attention when PBS sent a crew to film him at work. Photographic film was still the rule and Kodak used PBS footage in seminars around the country as an endorsement of their products. The Smithsonian Institute purchased prints for their permanent collection in the National Museum of the American Indian and for the traveling exhibit "Song for the Horse Nation".The advent of digital photography virtually eliminated the need to hire professional photojournalists to cover events as everyone became equipped with a camera ready to transmit photos instantly. In 2005, Jim and his wife, Kat, chose to move to Saugatuck, where he is busy photographing Michigan and lakeshore landscapes. His documentation of Native Americans continues here, resulting in several of the images in this exhibit.

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Talk: Contemporary Portraits of Native Americans by James Cook, part 2

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Talk: Contemporary Portraits of Native Americans by James Cook, part 2

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