Pearl Marie Salas

As an indigenous woman of Mexican, Yaqui, and Navajo ancestry, my work plays off this unique cultural mix to interrogate how the modern world relates to notions of past, present, and future selves. How do ancient traditions revered by marginalized peoples fit into a society that sought to destroy them? What role can media and art play in carrying those traditions into modern society? I take many of the indigenous concepts, teachings, and stories I have learned throughout my life, and find ways to insert them into an audio and visual realm while still maintaining a balance between sacred storytelling, and the personal stories of others and myself. In my work I want to disrupt a unified sense of history that has oppressed my people for generations, reconstructing sounds and images to present a new understanding of the realities we live in.