- Royce Fellowship
Laney
Knudson
Concentration
Brown/RISD Dual Degree: Undeclared (Brown); Film/Animation/Video (RISD)
Award Year
2019
The Grid as a Tool of Settler Colonialism
Grids can be found almost everywhere you look. From tiled floors, clothing designs, art on walls, to the tiny pixel grid that makes up the computer screen that this is being typed on. The Grid has come to represent Modernity in 20th century America due to its place in modern art, technology, and urban planning. However, these concepts of modernity are put in place by people in privileged positions that ignore marginalized groups. Grids have been used as a tool of settler and colonial violence against indigenous peoples: from being implemented in stolen land policies; to working to fracture indigenous identity in systems of blood quantum; to taking away Native autonomy over land through settler-constructed maps.