Mercedes Dorame
To the Land of the Dead - Shiishonga
Mercedes Dorame utilizes photography to investigate, recode, and connect with her Gabrielino-Tongva tribe culture, as well as to bring current Indigenous experiences to light. The Tongva were the original inhabitants of what is now Los Angeles, and their domain stretched from Malibu to San Bernardino, including Aliso Creek. They have lived in the Los Angeles basin for over 8,000 years. The state of California recognized them as an Indigenous tribe in 1994. However, they are still not federally recognized, which means they have restricted access to government funds and no designated reservation territory as a tribe.
Dorame’s Ceremonial Interventions Series is set in the Malibu hills, where she spent most of her youth with her non-Indigenous American grandparents. In images from this series, such as To the Land of the Dead – Shiishongahe, the artist uses organic elements such as sage, ochre, cinnamon, feathers, quartz, and the skins of coyotes and foxes—items that are traditionally utilized in ceremony and ritual—to activate this location, which was once Tongva territory. Her images also depict her work as a cultural resource consultant. Indigenous people are employed as cultural resource consultants to locate and occasionally remove artifacts, materials, and even mass burial sites in construction and development zones.
Embracing the landscape as a collaborator, this series of photographs is inspired by Dorame’s ancestors’ connection to the land and their awareness of celestial motions and events such as the solstice, dawn, and deep knowledge of the earth-sky link. Dorame explains it is an understanding that brings us, our bodies, and our minds into harmony with the cosmos. She also believes that this ceremonial work with the land, may inspire a collective awareness, filling the gaps of history and our complicated past with new rituals that allow for the possibility of a sovereign future.
Mercedes Dorame is a photographer and member of the Tongva tribe in Los Angeles. In consideration of her heritage and deep connection to the landscape of California, Dorame’s practice critically engages with constructions of culture, ceremony, sovereignty, community survival, and land rights. Dorame creates what she describes as "humble ceremonial interventions", installations that address the effects of living in a region where her tribe no longer has access. Her photographs capture these ceremonial interventions, noting that the federal government does not recognize her tribe, does not have reservation land, and therefore does not have a central gathering site. As we collectively grapple with the ramifications of expansive urban growth, both in terms of environmental degradation and the obfuscation of Indigenous history and vitality, Dorame’s work raises questions about the impact that urbanistic and architectural ambitions have on our understanding of Indigenous cultures in California and beyond.