Video“Art can remind people that they need to care.” – Sheperd Fairey

What happens when you put a renowned photographer and artist together to work on a social issue?

Violence. Poverty. Death. Shooting images of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota for the last seven years, photographer Aaron Huey was devastated by what he saw, his work turning him from photojournalist to activist.

“That was the moment it stopped being just about journalism and I actually chose a side. I chose their side and I I chose to say what they wanted me to say, whether it was realistic or journalistic no longer mattered,” says Huey in the trailer for Honor the Treaties The Film.

Honor the Treaties | The Film from Eric Becker on Vimeo.

Home of the Lakota Sioux, in Pine Ridge Reservation, sometimes referred to as Prisoner of War Camp Number 334, 90% of the residents live below the federal poverty line. The life expectancy of males is 47 years.

Taking his sobering work on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Huey collaborated with artists Sheperd Fairey and Ernesto Yerena to launch a street art campaign of murals and posters inspired by Huey’s original photography, giving the general public a visual of a subject often forgotten, or pushed aside, intended to spark a discussion of Native American treaty battles.

Spread the word. Learn more about the project and download the posters for your own dissemination here.

The post Video: Honor the Treaties, The Film appeared first on EcoSalon.