Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America

Matika Wilbur

Spirit and Soul – This is the most spiritual book I’ve read. In 2012, Matika Wilbur set out on a “decade-long art and storytelling endeavor” to photograph people from what were then 562 federally recognized Native American Tribal Nations and relay their stories. I was lucky enough to hear Matika speak in May 2024 at the national Educare Learning Network meeting, hosted by Educare Winnebago. Matika is a superb photographer and storyteller, who shared some of the portraits and real-life stories she gathered during her journey. The photographs are beautiful. The stories are, in turn, hilarious and harrowing. These powerful testimonies and images are now collected in this profound book. Reading “Project 562” takes time. The photographs are worth studying. The stories are worth digesting slowly, too. No book before this has made me feel the book itself has a soul. No book before this has conveyed a true sense of “spirit” or “spiritual” to me. I don’t want to get all “Native American – oh, cool! Let’s dance with wolves” about this, expressing some newly awakened phony-baloney mysticism. But I do believe that by pairing their words and her photographs, Matika Wilbur has artfully channeled the souls of people who are living and people who have passed. Astounding.