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Grown up West: Children of the Blackfeet Reservation in NW Montana
I have spent the past three summers making portraits of kids on the Blackfeet Reservation to illustrate the emotional and visual experience of childhood in this extreme land of vast beauty, endless sky and harsh deprivation.
On the US-Canadian border, twelve miles from Glacier National Park, lies the remote Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The reservation is a tough place to grow up for white and native children who are subjected to grinding poverty, substandard schools and a dearth of opportunity. Many families and kids are affected by alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and parental absenteeism.
Most kids on the reservation must take care of younger siblings and themselves, burdened by the responsibilities of the adult world while still clinging to the playful adventurousness of youth.
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Despite their circumstances, the children are strong, brave and resilient. They manifest tremendous independence and resourcefulness. This project is a window into their world; an exploration of the precarious balance between imaginative innocence and premature experience that defines childhood on the Blackfeet Reservation.