A Native American photographer took powerful portraits of members of every tribe across the US

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Matika Wilbur photographed members of every federally recognized Native American tribe. She named the series Project 562 for the number of recognized tribes at the time. She published a book of her photos titled "Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America."

Photographer Matika Wilbur was on assignment in South America when her grandmother appeared to her in a dream and told her to go capture her own people.

Wilbur, who is Native American, listened.

She embarked on a years long project photographing members of every federally recognized Native tribe in North America. In 2023, she published her collection of photos in a book titled "Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America."

Wilbur spoke with Business Insider about her project, her photos, and the importance of agency in Native American representation.

She drove hundreds of thousands of miles and photographed members of different Native American tribes for Project 562.

When Wilbur began her project in 2012, there were 562 federally recognized Native American tribes. Now, there are 574.

The project has grown from a photo series to a documentary project to a full-blown archive of Native people, their communities, and their stories.

The project has grown from a photo series to a documentary project to a full-blown archive of Native people, their communities, and their stories.

"We're always redrafting the language to describe this project," Wilbur told Business Insider. Wilbur photographed her subjects on black-and-white film using a method called the Zone System. The Zone System creates more dynamic range in the images. She's drawn to peer portraiture with simple landscape backdrops.

"I figured that that was sort of irresponsible when I started this project, to travel all over the country and not show the landscape," Wilbur said.

She let her subjects choose where and how they'd like to be photographed, giving them agency over how they'd be represented.

"Sometimes I'll be in the Grand Canyon and I'd rather take somebody's picture at Havasupai Falls because it's magnificent and there's this incredible blue-green water coming out of the ground ... and they want to be photographed on their front porch because they love where they live," she said. "I'll do what they want to do because people should be represented in a way that is important to them, especially in Indian Country."

"We've been photographed so many times by non-Indians and we've had our stories told so many times by people outside our community, and they get the story wrong," Wilbur said.

"We aim to correct that narrative through honest individual agency and storytelling," she said.

Wilbur asked people questions about themselves and their lives as she took their pictures.

Their conversations touched on family, love, heartbreak, moments that shaped them, and their hopes for the future. She also asked about their Native American identities.

"I find that people have really interesting things to say when you ask them what it means to be whatever their tribe is, and then when you ask them what it means to be an 'Indian,'" she said. "I'm fascinated by that."

Sometimes her subjects wore traditional Native clothing, while others wore everyday outfits.

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