House of Sky

Documentation of Vernacular Structures on the Flathead Reservation,
2020—Present

Book coming soon.

This project catalogues vernacular architecture along US 93, the primary road through northwest Montana’s Flathead Indian Reservation. The book contrasts the impermanent, often threadbare quality of the reservation’s architecture against the grandeur of Montana’s “Big Sky” and monolithic landscape. 

The project takes its name from Ivan Doig’s memoir, “This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind”, which describes the author’s upbringing in rural Montana.  By highlighting often non-standard architectural combinations and interactions with landscape, the photos explore how the landscape drives a unique domesticity and resilience, and how the Reservation itself represents a harsh overlayment of social and policial narratives.