Archives West Finding Aid

Zig Jackson (b.1957- ) is an artist and photographer teaching at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Georgia. An enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes—Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, he grew up on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. He holds a B.S. in education from Northeastern Oklahoma State University and M.F.A. in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute.

In addition to SCAD, Jackson has taught photography at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), Santa Fe; San Francisco State University; and the University of California, Davis. His work has been shown throughout the U.S. and abroad and is represented in public and private collections, including those of the Jonson Gallery (University of New Mexico), IAIA, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Joslyn Art Museum, SF MoMA, and SCAD. In 2004, Jackson became the first Native American to be represented in the collection of the National Library of Congress—as artist rather than subject—when the Prints and Photographs Division acquired a number of his images.

As an indigenous artist, Jackson uses photography to document the ever-changing landscape of contemporary Native America—from city to reservation to casino to oil country—and deconstruct the common myths and misconceptions that persist to the present day. Although people are inundated with images of Native Americans in the media and consumer society, Jackson observes that Indians still remain a mystery to mainstream America. Many continue to see Native Americans as "a people forgotten by time"—the Noble Savage," stoic warrior, buckskin-clad maiden, or all-knowing shaman. Jackson's images reveal a far different reality—one of a people in transition, at once struggling and thriving in the midst of a constantly changing technological world.

Source: Jackson, Zig. 2021. "Personal Statement." Correspondence with the University of Oregon's Special Collections and University Archives.