Understanding the American settler landscape
Dr Anita Bakshi says there’s a bit of a myth perpetuated in the United States - and it’s that Native Americans are a people of the past.
Dr Bakshi, who teaches in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University, beamed into the NZILA Firth Conference in May via livestream, speaking on “Understanding the American Settler Colonial Landscape.”
She told delegates that the wider U.S population fails to see Native Americans as living communities with political demands.
The “Peace Through Unity” memorial in Montana remembers Native Americans who battled at Little Bighorn. Image credit - Donnie Sexton/Montana Office of Tourism.
She spoke about the Indian Monument erected in 2003 at the National Monument at the Little Bighorn battlefield. This is the place of Custers last stand in Montana and previously told the story of the settlers’ defeat at the hands of Indian tribes in 1876.
She says while the Indian Monument was an attempt to highlight the other side of the story, for the peoples involved it missed the mark. Dr Bakshi says they felt it glamourised the war and didn’t truly reflect them spiritually and it just ‘hollywoodised’ the event.
And she says that is the case for many monuments around the country, they almost represent Indian people as mythical beings from the past but she says land rights and civil rights are key issues facing the U.S now and the protests surrounding the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline are an example of that.
Anita Bakshi is from the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA.
At a time we in Aotearoa are increasingly understanding the role colonisation continues to play in the lives of Māori, Dr Bakshi’s presentation resonated strongly with delegates at the conference.
NZILA President Henry Crothers says an understanding of de-colonisation is essential for any landscape architect working working in Aotearoa.
Dr Bakshi’s research has focused on questions of mapping and representation for contested environments. She has exhibited maps and drawings which document ethnographic research in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Her design research explores new forms for monuments, memorials, and other commemorative structures and her current research investigates the role of landscape architecture and design in the Anthropocene era through a design proposal for a memorial that marks and describes environmental losses and enables collective mourning and healing.
You can see the full conference presentation by Dr Anita Bakshi in the video below.
