“Coming from the school of “concerned photography”, I have always approached my work as a compassionate ethnographer and from the sense of a story that reveals itself.”

Rita Leistner, Photojournalist

Photojournalist Rita Leistner, highly regarded for her photojournalism in Iraq was invited to collaborate on the Edward Curtis Project at the invitation of Marie Clements. The artists spent two years travelling and visiting First Nations communities across North America in an epic artistic endeavor to create a photographic documentation which paralleled the scope of work of the legendary photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis, one hundred years earlier.

This exhibit sheds new light on the work of Curtis and documents the current reality of survival of First Nations people through powerful juxtaposed diptychs of individual Native people who agreed to being photo documented in identical settings wearing both contemporary and ceremonial costumes. The Exhibit also includes powerful images of spontaneous social life in First Nations communities.