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Welcome to Our new portfolio

Jenny Irene Miller

Jenny Irene Miller

Inupiaq, Sitŋasuaq – Nome, Alaska, United States
JENNY IRENE MILLER b. 1988; currently based in Dena'ina Ełnena – Anchorage, Alaska.


Jenny Irene Miller (she/her, they/them), Inupiaq, is an artist who works primarily with photography. She is originally from Nome, Alaska. Jenny holds an MFA in Art Studio, Photography, from the University of New Mexico, a BFA in Photomedia, and a BA in American Indian Studies, both from the University of Washington. She is a past Beaumont Newhall/Van Deren Coke Photography Fellow, SITE Santa Fe Scholar, Elizabeth Furber Fellow, and Fulbright Canada Killam Fellow.

Her work has been exhibited nationally at the Anchorage Museum, Portland Art Museum, SITE Santa Fe, Penumbra Foundation, Southampton Arts Center, Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, and more. She has also exhibited internationally at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Canada and at the Incheon Open Port in South Korea, to name a few. Jenny is a recipient of awards from the Alaska Humanities Forum, National Geographic, Fulbright Canada, and a Fulbright Canada Killam Fellowship to Canada. Her work has been featured by Inuit Art Quarterly, the New York Times, National Geographic, Canadian Art, Fifth Wheel Press, Forum Magazine, and Lenscratch among others.

https://www.jennyirenemiller.com/

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Refusal

Digital video, 2:05 (2020)

Refusal

2020

2’05” HD video

Refusal, is a small gesture of mine, acknowledging that one of the most powerful ways to stand against the settler state is by standing your ground as an Indigenous person, by not going away, and by taking up space. This video also speaks to my refusal of the desire of the settler state to classify my Inupiaq identity based on my appearance and other colonial modes of measurement that cannot fully speak to who I am. I am denying viewers the opportunity to classify who I am simply based on my appearance.

As Deborah Bird has highlighted, “To get in the way of settler colonization, all the [N]ative [person] has to do is stay home.” Indigenous peoples, and specifically queer Indigenous folks, are a threat to the empire simply through our existence. This threat is found within our refusal of the U.S. empire’s queerphobic and patriarchal principles. Standing our ground and taking up space as Indigenous peoples gets in the way of settler colonialism and is Indigenous refusal.


Refusal from JIM on Vimeo.