western> <indigenous???

subtext:

There is an emerging intellectual discourse that seeks to conceive of an epistemological binary between what is Western and what is indigenous. There is an assumed acceptance of this framing as axiomatic. Yet, where does the binary of indigenous epistemology and Western, colonial thought arise from?

art description:

Set against a pre-colonial map of indigenous nations in North America, there are three diagonal depictions of the Lower Mississippi tribes cosmological and epistemological worldviews. As protruding and intervening, the “Platonic World > Physical World” depictions are adapted from Western epistemological worldviews . The difference in the shape and relationality of these depictions is highlighted to showcase both the antagonism and opportunity for intersection.