Description
In Who Wins?, Jeremy Dennis presents a stark and thought-provoking image that challenges the common narrative of "winners" and "losers" in the context of early colonial history and the Indian Wars. The image juxtaposes a figure in the foreground, clad in camo and holding a rifle, with a Native American figure in the distant background. The positioning of the figures emphasizes the stark divide between the aggressor and the defender, but Dennis uses this visual contrast to question the very concept of "victory" in such a violent, unjust conflict.
The Indian Wars are often framed as a binary struggle between the "winners" — the European settlers and their descendants — and the "losers" — the Indigenous peoples who were forced to fight for their survival and sovereignty. But Who Wins? subverts this simplistic narrative, asking the viewer to consider who the real winner is when a group of people is compelled to engage in a battle simply to defend their homes and way of life. The rifle-wielding figure in the foreground represents the historical aggressor, while the distant Native figure evokes the struggle of defending one's land against overwhelming force. Dennis suggests that the true cost of such "victories" is not just the loss of land and life, but the erasure of culture, identity, and sovereignty. In reexamining this historical conflict, Who Wins? forces us to question what true victory means in the face of systemic injustice and the relentless fight for survival.
