Landscapes of Terror, Dreams, and Loneliness: Explorations in Art, Ethnography, and Friendship.

From 1985 to 1987, while engaged concurrently in ethnographic and visual artistic work, I discovered that my artistic production, involving both subject matter and style, were influenced by the ethnographic encounter. The subject matter was influenced by those images created by the ambivalent and asymmetrical quality of the relationships created in the ethnographic encounter. The style was the figurative painting of the nude. Although I had been trained as an abstract painter, I found myself making use of the figurative representation of the female nude as the center of my artistic production. The choice of style, in this case of the female nude, and the apparent inseparability of the experiences of ethnography and painting led me to ask questions about the relationship between the ethnographic encounter and visual and ethnographic representations. Specifically, why is the figurative painting of the nude under certain circumstances better suited for the representation of the ethnographic encounter? And what are the similarities between the production of paintings of female nudes and the production of ethnographies?

I will address these questions by first examining my ethnographic experience and the asymmetrical relationships created in the fieldwork situation. I will show the unbalanced structure of power in these relationships and the ambiguities of friendship created in the ethnographic research by presenting dream narratives as examples of ethnographic dialogues. I will then discuss my artistic production and its relationship with the ethnographic production through a discussion of my relationship with the model and the making of these paintings.

Throughout this paper I will argue that the painting of the model provides a natural site for the recreation of the asymmetrical relationships and ambiguities of the ethnographic encounter. This similitude of the artistic and ethnographic sites emerges to a great extent from the common philosophical tradition that both modern art and ethnography have shared in their development, a tradition that sought to provide a holistic and totalizing image in response to the fragmentation of modern life. As these disciplines developed during the formation of modernity in the Western world, modern art and ethnography have provided strategies to confront modernity that have been expressed in the representation of an Other created by the dominant culture.

Ethnographic Encounter and Dream Narratives

The anthropological fieldwork situation creates ambivalent and conflicting relationships. ¹ It normally pairs individuals from different statuses of wealth, social class, and cultural prestige. Because of this, fieldwork relationships have been described as unequal. ² In many ways I represented for the Mapuche a social and cultural position that was viewed by them as being of a “higher status.” I was an urban Chilean who lived in the United States, a place considered by many to be a rich and powerful country. Although I looked not very different from them because of my Japanese and Hispanic ancestry, I was considered of a higher status because of my possessions and situation. I had possession of objects that were almost unattainable for many of the people I met: a jeep, cameras, video and recording equipment, a computer, and so forth. In addition, I maintained a small residence in the main town, Temuco, which is surrounded by Mapuche reservations. I was affluent in their eyes and able to travel freely from their land to the cities and abroad. I had the material resources and the leisure simply to visit, ask questions, and observe for almost two years. Although I developed personal relationships with the Mapuche that are as strong as the ones I have in my daily life in the U.S., these relationships were constantly tested in terms of questions of motivation, status, and power.

Another important aspect in the creation of ambiguous and conflicting relationships in the field is the pairing of anthropologists who are usually undergoing some form of culture shock and of self-strangeness with those who are studied, who normally do not know or understand the kind of relationship formed with the researcher in the way the researcher does. The self-strangeness is created when the anthropologist is in a situation that is unfamiliar and does not support one’s...