Aaron Huey: In the Shadow of Wounded Knee - Tapa dura

Never has there been a greater gap between rich and poor and it seems to be growing at an impossible and unsustainable rate (begging for a revolution). The system is rigged, and the ones with the power have made sure that they cannot lose. They do this through debt slavery, land grabs and governmental policies that place corporations above communities. I think often of the inequality that comes when the corporate state is in opposition to the health and welfare of the people. I think about it often in relationship to how our resources are extracted, and how that process negatively affects, in the short term, largely indigenous communities (but will ultimately affect us all). Though we need many of these resources to survive as a nation, the poisonous byproducts of these operations -- uranium mines, coal plants, fracking operations and tar-sand extractions, to name just a few - all seem to trickle down into the communities that have the least power. They pay for our wealth with their health, with the diseases they contract from the poisons they breath and drink. Many will pay with their death.--Helen Walters "TED "

When Aaron Huey first visited South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation in 2005, he didn't expect that it would be a world-altering experience. He began the project as an objective photojournalist's look at poverty in America. But after spending eight years documenting the residents of Pine Ridge, his professional and personal outlook has changed dramatically. His book, Mitakuye Oyasin, which was published by Radius Books in July, is perhaps just the tip of the iceberg of Huey's work with the Lakota. "The whole book was almost more like a prayer or a poem than a documentary. It was like a ceremony, and I didn't realize it until the end. I didn't experience that place in a linear way and, at the end of the day, I didn't want to put it together in that way," Huey said. "It's a big stack of images that a lot of people wish there was more explanation for and I didn't want to give it. I didn't want to walk everybody through every image."--Jordan G. Teicher "Slate "

In this powerful book, Aaron Huey (born 1975) portrays both the broken social landscape and the ceremonial warrior culture of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The book begins and ends with a traditional Lakota prayer, suggesting that the intervening images may be analogous to a transformative ceremonial experience. The Pine Ridge Reservation, located 75 miles southeast of the Black Hills in South Dakota, is sometimes referred to as Prisoner of War Camp #344, and is now the home of the Oglala Lakota. Sadly, Pine Ridge is now the quintessential example of the failure of the US reservation system imposed upon the Lakota and other tribes, with staggering statistics on everything from violent crime to education. The unemployment rate is nearly 90% and the life expectancy for men is 48, roughly the same as Afghanistan and Somalia.
Huey stumbled upon Pine Ridge seven years ago. Since then he has created one of the single largest bodies of work on a contemporary Indian Reservation. His color photographs stand as a testament to the incredible difficulties facing the tribe and the reparations yet to be made to them, but also to the strength and beauty of their spirit, which shines through all of the darkness. This new edition contains three inserts of new images and has a traditional binding (where the first edition featured a "lay-open" binding).