In honor of Native American Heritage Month, we're exploring what it means to be a resilient, young Indigenous person in 2020 and the changemakers working to decolonize our world.
Fox Maxy’s short films are montages of a singular Native American life, knit together in seamless motion, as if they capture consciousness itself. The artist behind Civic Films creates definitively avant-garde productions, (like Maat Means Land, One Big Selfie, and Muzzles Off) which move fluidly, carrying the viewer through layered dimensions of real and virtual space. Native voices are speaking, fragmented landscapes of Southern California stream, as moving pictures of a life happening now connect to other Native lives today, craftily imposing questions about the nature of identity, land, and time.
The Ipai Kumeyaay and Payómkawichum artist grew up in the inland region of San Diego, where desert and mountains lay in place of the urban constructs concentrated along the city’s coastal perimeter. The filmmaker was adopted and raised by loving parents, two academics who worked in the areas of political science and philosophy, respectively. An only child, Fox remembers her childhood outside, long days in the sun and the warm winds, always around horses. The Native American Reservation where her biological family lived lay geographically close but was otherwise invisible.
“I had no idea that's where I came from,” Fox confesses to me. Like most young people coming of age, as a teenager, she was a mystery guest in her own experience, uncertain of who she really is. “I would go to my land with friends, begging them to drive me over there, just because it felt good to sit on a rock out in the middle of nowhere.” It was many years later when Fox learned that this nowhere-land of inexplicable peace is the home of a tribe she also belongs to, a quartered-off plot of land belonging to her own Native ancestors who once lived freely beyond its borders, across the area known today as Southern California.
“I had no idea what a Native American was,” Fox says, recalling those days in her youth. “I didn't have a sense of my own identity like that.” She was loved and felt safe with her parents, but the connectedness at home ended there. “Every time I left my parents, I would always have to answer a million questions about my existence. I got sick of it early on, so I didn't really ask any questions myself.”
Fox says she was an outsider in part because she was surrounded by the children of white-supremacists, carrying on their own ancestral tradition of racism. “I grew up with either white kids or Mexican kids, and 90 percent of the white kids were white-power affiliated. I'm used to people saying ‘ew’ at the sight of me, or telling me to wash my skin, or refusing to be in an enclosed space with me. I was used to racism and rage from an early age. All I knew was that I was a freak.”
Like many deemed to be “freaks” before her, Fox fled her hometown after high school, following the migration route of outsiders and artists well-established in the 20th Century to New York City. “My [adopted] mom is from Brooklyn, my dad from Chicago and I grew up visiting big cities. That's where I got my love for New York. I was there for almost a decade and really got to experience it all.” At 26, Fox met her biological parents. With newfound clarity, Fox returned West. “I left my small town in such a hurry and felt so negative toward it, but the minute I moved back, and met my family, it all made sense. I feel like the land really shaped me.”
Earlier in her life, Fox was more politically active than she is today. She used to fight for policy reform, land rights, and environmental causes but after a while felt like people were “perpetuating the same colonial structures we were fighting against.” She adds, "I can't blame people for carrying on what they see, colonization is a hell of a thing.”
Today she's more concerned with storytelling and connecting with her family on their reservation. “There are 18 reservations just in San Diego — I gotta say that to add some context. But I love how I have family all over SoCal, I really spend most of my time with them. I visit my parents, my uncles, my cousins. I'm focusing on learning my culture, as much as I can. Even just to walk through some of our mountain areas and look at all the plants, that's learning for me.”
Fox has always wanted to be a filmmaker. She began her foray into filmmaking by making clips on Instagram. Her practice is rooted in the means available to her, which is why her films are shot on a phone — yet have an early Tumblr, analog feel. She is inspired by artists that span generations, popularity, and genre. “I love James Luna, John Akomfrah & the Black Audio Film Collective, Ryan Trecartin, Bjork, Paul McCarthy, Kim Kardashian, Pipilotti Rist, Rob Zombie, Issa Rae, and Cat Marnell,” Fox shares.
Fox learned how to edit film on Instagram. “Step by step,” she says, reflecting on the humble, isolated origin of her artmaking from her unexpected present position of mainstream exposure. “I would make things out of pure rage, just so angry that no matter how hard I worked, I was still invisible to the world,” Fox says.
It's not secret that in the art world, there are barriers of entry erected by the same colonialist social institutions and heteronormative white-supremacy — that have often erased the histories of Native people. Yet, Fox doesn't let these paradigms stop her from creating the work. Fox felt that it was impossible to make a movie, until she realized that filmmaking isn’t controlled by outside powers. Rather, it is a practice, possible for anyone with the means to capture moving images.
“Anyone can make a movie,” Fox says. “This colonized world really makes people think they have to take direction from somebody or something. I don't know anything more than anyone else. I make up my own rules, and I hope my work can let people know that they can do whatever the hell they want.”
Fox is still processing the fact that people beyond her own community are beginning to care about her work and that it's being seen. Despite being deeply loved by family, Fox has suffered greatly since childhood, feeling placeless, unbound, unwanted, and without origin in a world that would sooner forget that she is here, than listen to her speak.
“I've learned about intergenerational trauma, and how the destruction of our land hurts us in more ways than just physical health,” Fox explains. Looking back on the difficulties that brought her here, she can’t help but hope that her story, her art can help other people, whoever they are. “I've been not wanting to be here since I was in preschool,” she shares. Fox has lived with what psychologists might call suicidal ideation for virtually her entire life.
“I really have been wanting to die since I was a little baby,” Fox says. Yet it is there, in the sandstorm of existence, on the road to a nowhere land, where the pain of rootlessness has been eased by the resilience of stone and the eternity of sky. The land of her people has been stolen, soaked in blood, and forgotten. Yet the stones in the desert, which once held her in the sun, back when she had no reason to know she was home, are still standing.
“I am so grateful for all the battles, and the horrible shit that's happened so far, because that's what's made me want to keep living,” she says. “I have a badass dog named Peltier, I got her at Standing Rock, traded her for a blanket."
Adding, “This is the best time in my life. I see how precious life is, how important I am, and how I have a purpose in this life. So to finally be able to reach more people with my work, it's like a further extension of wanting to be alive. I'm no longer erased.”
This article has been updated as of January 2024 to reflect Fox Maxy's she/her pronouns.
CREDITS:
Talent: Fox Maxy (+ Laurab1tch)
Photographer: Kava Gorna
Art Director: Emily Zirimis
Culture & Entertainment Director: Danielle Kwateng
We send a special thank you to the Mesa Grande Indian Reservation for allowing us to photograph on location.
