Matika Wilbur (born 1984), is a Native American photographer and educator from Washington state. A member of the

Tulalip The Tulalip Tribes of Washington (, ), formerly known as the Tulalip Tribes of the Tulalip Reservation, is a federally recognized tribe of Duwamish people, Duwamish, Snohomish tribe, Snohomish, Snoqualmie people, Snoqualmie, Upper Skagit Indian Tr ...

and Swinomish tribes, she is best known for her photography project, Project 562, and co-hosting the All My Relations podcast with Adrienne Keene.

Early life and education

Matika Lorraine Wilbur was born in 1984, to a Tulalip father and a Swinomish mother. She is a member of both the

and Swinomish tribes. Wilbur grew up predominantly on the

Swinomish reservation The Swinomish Indian Reservation is the Indian reservation, reservation of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, located on Fidalgo Island in western Washington (state), Washington state. The western boundary of the reservation is disputed betw ...

in a family of commercial fishermen. She traveled to

La Conner, Washington La Conner is a town in Skagit County, Washington, United States with a population of 965 at the 2020 census. It is included in the Mount Vernon– Anacortes, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area. History La Conner was first sett ...

to attend high school. She graduated from the

Brooks Institute of Photography Brooks may refer to: * Brook (small stream) Places Antarctica * Cape Brooks Canada *Brooks, Alberta United Kingdom * Brooks, Cornwall * Brooks, Powys, a location United States * Brooks, Alabama * Brooks, Arkansas * Brooks, California *Brooks, ...

with a degree in advertising. Her Native name is Tsa-Tsiq, meaning "She Who Teaches."

Career

Before beginning her photography career, Wilbur worked as a fashion photographer is Los Angeles, but found the work unfulfilling. She also worked as a teacher at Tulalip Heritage High School.

Photography

Wilbur's three initial photographic projects include ''We Are One People'', a photograph collection of

Coast Salish The Coast Salish peoples are a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak on ...

elders; ''We Emerge'', a photograph collection of Native people in contemporary settings, and ''Save the Indian and Kill the Man'', a collection of Native youth expressing their identities. Her other work includes "", presenting images interwoven with cedar bark. "All Alone" is a 2012 project that addresses the cultural assimilation of Native Americans between the 1880–1980. "iHuman" is a 2013 cultural project that represents the cultural dualism that Native Americans live upon. The artist specializes in hand-tinted, black-and-white silver gelatin prints.

Project 562

Project 562 is Wilbur's fourth major project to document contemporary

Indigenous peoples There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

, with the goal of photographing members of all US tribes on their tribal lands. Wilbur started "Project 562" as a photographic series in 2012. She began traveling across the United States in November of that year; she raised over $35,000 for her expenses in a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

campaign. She has since traveled 250,000 miles in her work to photograph indigenous people. The title of the project refers to the number of Indigenous North American tribes officially recognized by the United States at the time Wilbur began the work. That number has since changed, reflecting the ongoing legal efforts of individual tribes to regain legal status after the decimation of tribal status under the United States Termination policy. Wilbur said her grandmother came to her in a dream suggesting she do this work. She works collaboratively with tribal leaders and members to create the photographs. Wilbur conceived of Project 562 as an answer to Edward Curtis' photographs, a century earlier, of Indigenous Americans. Curtis took over 40,000 photographs of 80 tribes.

Podcast

Wilbur also hosts the All My Relations podcast with Adrienne Keene. The interview-based podcast discusses issues facing Native American communities, including indigenous

food sovereignty Food sovereignty is a food system in which the people who produce, distribute, and consume food also control the mechanisms and policies of food production and Food distribution, distribution. This stands in contrast to the present corporate Agr ...

. It has received recognition from the A.V. Club and the Toronto Star.

Selected exhibitions

* 2014: ''Photographic Presence and Contemporary Indians: Matika Wilbur's Project 562'',

Tacoma Art Museum The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) is an art museum in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It focuses primarily on the art and artists from the Pacific Northwest and broader western region of the U.S. Founded in 1935, the museum has strong roots in the ...

, Washington * 2014–2016: ''As We See It: Contemporary Native American Photographers'',

Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts The Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, established in 1986, is the largest art museum of the Urals region of Russia. It is based in Voevodina Street on the banks of the Iset River in the city of Yekaterinburg (known as Sverdlovsk between 1924 and ...

, Ekaterinburg, Russia; The Fifth Biennial of Contemporary Photography; Novosibirsk State Art Museum,

Novosibirsk, Russia Novosibirsk is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and the Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 census, it had a population of 1,633,595, making it the most populous city in Siberia and the third-mo ...

; 516 ARTS, Albuquerque, NM * 2016: ''Seed of Culture: The Portraits and Stories of Native American Women'', Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University *March 13 - June 13, 2021: Whatcom Museum: Seeds of Culture, Bellingham, WA *October, 2018 - January, 2018: El Segundo Museum of Art Matriarchs Exhibition, El Segundo, CA *November, 2018 - December, 2018: Anne Kittrell Art Gallery, Project 562, Campus Collection Series, Fayetteville, AR

References

External links

*
Matika Wilbur: "Changing the Way We See Native Americans"
TEDx Talk
"What Native Americans really look like
CNN article about Matika Wilbur * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilbur, Matika Living people 1984 births 21st-century American photographers 21st-century American women photographers 21st-century Native American artists 21st-century Native American women Coast Salish artists Tulalip people Native American photographers People from La Conner, Washington Native American women photographers