Kali Spitzer (born 1987) is a Canadian indigenous photographer. She is

Kaska Dena The Kaska or Kaska Dena are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living mainly in northern British Columbia and the southeastern Yukon in Canada. The Kaska language, originally spoken by the Kaska, is an Athabas ...

from the Yukon and then Daylu (

Lower Post Lower Post is an aboriginal community in northern British Columbia, Canada, located on Highway 97, the Alaska Highway, approximately 15 miles (23 kilometres) southeast of Watson Lake, Yukon. Its historical mile designation is Mile 620. It is lo ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

). Her father is

and her mother is Jewish from

Transylvania, Romania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the ...

Education

Spitzer earned her certificate in professional photography from the Western Academy of Photography and has studied at the

Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic S ...

in Santa Fe, New Mexico, under the mentorship of Will Wilson.

Career

Spitzer has worked with film in

35mm 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film, a type of motion picture film stock * 35MM 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format ...

, 120 and large format, as well as wet plate

collodion process The collodion process is an early photographic process. The collodion process, mostly synonymous with the "collodion wet plate process", requires the photographic material to be coated, sensitized, exposed, and developed within the span of about ...

using an 8-by-10 camera. She works in portraiture, and photographs cultural practices and ceremonies in her community. At the age of 20, she returned to the Yukon, where she is originally from, and documented the cultural practices around hunting, fishing, trapping, tanning moose and caribou hides, and beading. She is also known to use

tintype A tintype, also known as a melainotype or ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal coated with a dark lacquer or enamel and used as the support for the photographic emulsion. Tintypes enjoyed their wi ...

photography as a means to place her work "in dialogue with the problematic history of Native American imagery by white photographers". Spitzer received a Reveal Indigenous Art Award in 2017 from the Hnatyshyn Foundation. Spitzer's photograph ''Sister'' (2016) is the image used as the basis for the sculpture ''Every One'', which is part of the social engagement work called the ''MMIWQT Bead Project'' by artist

Cannupa Hanska Luger Cannupa Hanska Luger (born 1979) is a New Mexico-based interdisciplinary artist whose community-oriented artworks address environmental justice and gender violence issues. Luger is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Be ...

. The work was made up of over 4,000 clay beads made by people all over North America as to create portrait in a way to "rehumanize data" surrounding missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, queer and trans people.

Exhibitions

Spitzer's work was showcased at the 2018 Contemporary Native Art Biennial. She has done exhibitions at the Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts, Sherbrooke, Quebec, the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum becam ...

's Center for Contemporary Native Art, the Never Apart Centre in Montreal, Quebec, and the grunt gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia.

References

External links

Artist website
Living people Canadian women photographers 21st-century Canadian photographers First Nations photographers {{DEFAULTSORT:Spitzer, Kali 1987 births Jewish Canadian artists Canadian people of Romanian-Jewish descent Kaska Dena 21st-century women photographers 21st-century Canadian women artists