Photographs of Katsina Dolls Enhance and Inhibit

The Holyoke Center is more fertile these days thanks to some Hopi spirits—though spirits of a distinctly 20th century sort. Hopi katsina dolls—traditionally carved by Hopi Indians to share the stories of their ancestors—are telling their stories through a new medium: photography.

Through Feb. 28, George Ducharme will be displaying a photographic study of his collection of katsina dolls in the Holyoke Center Exhibition Space. The dolls’ carvings are meant to represent katsina spirits, benevolent ancestral beings whom the Hopi believe can bring fertility and health to their native arid land. The carvings are given to children to teach them the spirits’ stories and about Hopi culture in general—and the ones shown in the exhibit serve much the same purpose.

At first glance, Ducharme’s photographs are strikingly bold, reminiscent of finely detailed portraits. The magnification of the dolls’ faces to ten times their original size, combined with a serious enhancement of color manipulated through the use of Photoshop, creates a larger-than-life appeal that resonates with the spirituality said to be embodied within the dolls.

Ducharme says he chose to focus primarily on the katsinas’ masks, or faces, because the Hopi themselves concentrated their efforts largely on the details of the dolls’ heads. A doll can represent a katsina spirit simply through its facial features; at times an artist will choose to draw rather than carve the body. Ducharme also says that he emphasized the colors used to paint the dolls’ masks because they are symbolic in Hopi art: the Hopi use six colors to denote direction or the region from which a particular animal involved in a ritual comes.

While Ducharme also exhibited real katsina dolls with several books about the carvings and Hopi culture in general, the exhibit was evidently centered on his photographs.

“I’m attracted to the photographs more so than to a doll...Personally, these get my attention more than the dolls,” says Deena Anderson, the program assistant of Holyoke Center events and the coordinator of the exhibition.

Ducharme says his choice of using such a medium was based on a desire to combine his interest in photography with the act of bringing out the beauty in his collection of katsina dolls. “Photography makes [the details] more accessible to people because they’re larger,” he says. “More people can enjoy a particular doll. I can capture a moment in time, and with the use of lighting bring out what I interpret to be the most important part of the doll.”

The photographs are successful in catching the eye and in evoking awe in the vibrant colors, texture, and detailed intricacy of the dolls’ faces. The juxtaposition of the large portraits with the small dolls­—the ability to take in the photographs at a distance combined with the necessity of having a doll practically in hand to see the finely crafted details—achieves Ducharme’s purpose of making the dolls more available for admiration.

But viewers’ appreciation then becomes centered more on the technique and artistry of the photographs themselves, rather than the beauty of the traditions and culture represented in the carvings. Ducharme’s work also renders viewers far more susceptible to a linear understanding of the beliefs surrounding the dolls. Rather than leaving the artistic merits of the Hopi dolls to the interpretation of the outsider, who draws his own conclusions from a piece based largely on personal sentiment, Ducharme acts as a sort of middleman. By presenting Hopi art through the medium of photography, the effect the katsina dolls have on the viewer has been filtered through Ducharme’s own representation of the carvings: his positioning of the doll, use of lighting, and even how much of the doll’s face he includes in the photograph affect the impression a viewer has of a particular spirit’s personality.

Much of this information, while ostensibly suggesting the right idea about the spirit embodied within, is in some ways presented in a slightly manufactured manner. Ducharme, in focusing on those parts of the carvings that he finds most appealing, positions the dolls to reflect his feeling, a move that emphasizes the physical beauty of the dolls but fails to capture the spiritual significance that they hold.

Though Ducharme undeniably captures—even magnifies—the beauty of the dolls, his decision to mediate their presentation only hinders our appreciation of their true significance.

—Staff writer Denise J. Xu can be reached at dxu@fas.harvard.edu.