In 2012, Matika Wilbur ( Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes) sold almost everything she owned, left behind her apartment in Seattle, and set out on the open road. The former high school teacher had one goal: to photograph members of each federally recognized Native American tribe in the United States.
Wilbur’s photographs are mostly black and white. She shoots on a Canon EOS 7D digital, and a Mamiya film camera. When she finishes Project 562 (named for the number of federally recognized tribes at the time Wilbur began her work), she plans to compile the photographs and share them with the public through various publications, exhibitions and curricular material.
To date, the 31-year-old has driven more than 250,000 miles and has nearly completed her journey. She will finish her tour at the end of the month in the northeastern US. Wilbur has taken thousands of pictures so far. She has met with a range of people that include PhDs, lawyers, tribal elders, designers, grandmothers and artists. But sometimes she worries it isn’t enough.
A search for Native Americans on the internet yields almost nothing but reductionist, 18th-century representations of a “feathered and leathered people”, Wilbur says. She hopes the pictures she’s taking can someday replace the stereotyped, dated ones found in internet searches, and the ones we hold on to in our collective psyche.
“I’m ultimately doing this because our perception matters,” she says. “Our perception fuels racism. It fuels segregation. Our perception determines the way we treat each other.” Article by The Guardian
here is her Ted Talk ‘Surviving Disappearance, Re-Imagining & Humanizing Native Peoples’
