1st Peoples: Portraits of the First Light

Overview

During the summer of 2024, the Cape Ann Museum is proudly presented 1^st Peoples: Portraits of the First Light, a new exhibition of photographic narratives by Matika Wilbur (Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes) made in consultation with SmokeSygnals, a Native creative agency based in Mashpee, MA. The exhibition featured contemporary photographs of the original stewards of what is now known as New England including photographs of Nipmuc, Wampanoag, Shinnecock, Passsamaquody, and Penobscot peoples. The photographs were accompanied by poignant excerpts from real conversations around identity, culture, and sovereignty.

Pulling both from Wilbur’s Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America and from a week-long residency at the Cape Ann Museum, this exhibition celebrated the diversity and resiliency of modern Indigenous identity and addressed the importance of honest representation. During her CAM residency in the spring of 2024, Wilbur traveled across Eastern Massachusetts to take new portraits of Native people from the region.

Created by Matika Wilbur, Project 562 is a multi-year national photography project dedicated to photographing over 562 federally recognized Tribes, urban Native communities, Tribes fighting for federal recognition and Indigenous role models in what is currently-known-as the United States. The result is an unprecedented repository of imagery and oral histories that accurately portrays contemporary Native Americans.

1^st Peoples: Portraits of the First Light is presented as part of the CAM Native Initiative, an ongoing series of programs, installations, and exhibitions at the Cape Ann Museum. The CAM Native Initiative is dedicated to centering and expanding the histories and contemporary stories of Native people from across Eastern Massachusetts.

This exhibition is funded in part by the Institute for Museum & Library Services.

About Matika Wilbur

Matika Wilbur is from the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes. She is the founder and photographer of Project 562, a documentary project dedicated to changing the way we see Native America. After earning her BFA from Brooks Institute of Photography, Wilbur began her career in fashion and commercial photography in Los Angeles. She found herself turned off by the commercial world and thereafter decided to use photography as a tool for social justice.

Project 562 is Wilbur’s fourth major creative project elevating Native American identity and culture. Her first project captured portraits of Coast Salish elders for “We Are One People” (2004, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, and the Royal British Columbia Museum of Fine Arts, Victoria, British Columbia). She created “We Emerge,” which featured Native people in contemporary urban and traditional settings (2008, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Seattle, Washington), followed by “Save the Indian and Kill the Man,” which addressed the forced cultural assimilation of Natives from 1880 to 1980 (2012, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington). Since 2015, Wilbur has offered more than three hundred keynote speeches at institutions such as Harvard University, Yale University, University of California–Berkeley, Google, and the National Education Association, and she also has delivered several TED Talks.

Wilbur is a National Geographic Explorer and recipient of the distinguished Leica Photo Award. She cohosts the popular Native issues podcast All My Relations with Dr. Adrienne Keene, which invites guests to explore the connections between land, creatural relatives, and one another. Dispatches from Project 562 can be found on Matika’s Instagram account (@project_562) and you can learn more about Matika at matikawilbur.com.

Find a copy of Matika Wilbur’s book Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America at the Museum Store or at our Online Store.

Read the press release here.