In Hindsight

Marianne Nicolson (b. Comox, Canada, Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nations) lives in Kwakwaka’wakw community of Kingcome Inlet, Canada (Dzawada’enuxw people)

In Hindsight seeks to reverse the colonial gaze by subverting it through the lens of Indigenous First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast. The work references portraits of “Boston” and “King George” men (American and English, respectively) made by Pacific Northwest Coast First Nations artists beginning in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The portraits reverse the dominant cultural practice in North America of representing Indigenous culture and individuals through a European gaze. In Nicolson’s work, it is the Indigenous gaze that depicts the European or American.