Selected works
Legacies of Photographic Silver
The City That Kodak Built
a:yetíya' dágeha’ [We Should Help Her]
Red. Lined.
Scarify
Desert Treasure
Among The Weeds And The Waste
[de]compose
LAND / SEAS / SUN
Breathe
©2024 Alice Cazenave
2024
16 x 20” gelatin silver print
Outdated photographic paper
Darkroom printed with White Corn & Lye plant-developer
Made in collaboration with Kalen Fontenelle (Seneca, Heron Clan).
Kodak has a masked history of establishing itself on and contaminating Native American Lands. Before the industry arrived in present day Rochester New York, White Corn was cultivated extensively, and with care, by Haudenosaunee communities.
This piece was made collaboration with photographer Kalen Fontenelle (Seneca, Heron Clan). It was darkroom printed with plant-based photo-chemistry made from White Corn and lye. This solution is a byproduct of cooking White Corn - it was repurposed here as a low-toxic substitute to industrial photo-chemistry. The piece acknowledges the strength of the work at the White Corn Project, a project restoring White Corn cultivation to Haudenosaunee and wider Native American communities.
a:yetíya' dágeha’ [We Should Help Her] foregrounds the positive futures of Rochester and its communities, while acknowledging Kodak’s toxic and colonial legacy.
The title speaks to the need to remediate Kodak-contaminated waterways, and of helping yöëdzade' (the earth), which in Haudenosaunee culture is a female being.