“A frontier can only exist in the minds of those who do not call it home. For not one remote valley or speck of rock has gone uncounted by the inhabitants of that place” - Lisa Wells, Believers

This is a story that begins at the end. When Geronimo surrendered for the last time to US government troops led by General Nelson Miles in 1886, it marked the end of the “Indian Wars,” and officially opened up the west for white expansion. Following the surrender, General Miles ordered his troops to build a cairn of rocks to mark the location of what was clearly an historic event, and some people say a bottle was placed inside of the cairn with a piece of paper containing the names of all the US troops that were present. Today this spot sits on private land and is inaccessible to the public. The cairn has been pilfered and a tree is growing up through it, but the significance of the place is no less than it was when General Miles decided it should have a visible marker on the landscape. The photographs in this collection consider the history of colonization in the American west, with a focus on the genocide of Native Americans and the glorification of violence that continues in the US today. The appropriation of native lands occurred in many ways, from outright theft, to Hollywood’s worship of outlaws and its portrayal of the west as an empty space, primed for white settlement. These photographs expose this legacy of oppression by revealing the topography of monuments and memory sites that seek to shape its narrative. At the same time, the photographs in this project are also a map of the pilgrimages that I am personally compelled to take, both to acknowledge the injustices of the past, and to pay homage to the indigenous peoples of a country that I call my home.