Wild Rice Billboard
The visual artifact I chose to analyze is a billboard that is currently being displayed up north. My freshman seminar class took a trip up to White Earth Indian Resvervation and on the way back we stopped to look at this billboard. On The billboard was split into 4 sections. On the far left it was an older black and white picture of a woman harvesting wild rice and on the far left it was an older black and white picture of a an harvesting wild rice. In the Center section, on one side you have a more recent color picture of a man and woman together in canoe, surrounded by wild rice, harvesting the crop in the tradtional matter. In that same section in the lower right hand corner are the words "wild rice" written in white and the word "prophecy" writtn in yellow. On the other side of the center section is an overview of a section of a rice lake and the same man and woman in a canoe. In this section is the phrase "...keep it wild." The knowledge i gained from my trip to the reservation was that the wild rice was/is very important the the Ojibwe people. Not only is it a staple in their diet traditionally, but it holds so much history in their culture as a way to come together as a community. Currently there is an issue with the wild rice, the Ojibwe want to keep the wild rice "wild" and not taint it with chemicals, pesticides, and other crap. The other side is to cultivate the wild rice. There isn't a website link to view the billboard...but just take my word that it looks really cool...oh wait i did forget a small detail. On the far right side (not on the end but close to it) there is a vertical strip with the colors of the ojibwe flag, yellow, red, black, and white.