Treaties between Europeans and aboriginals were made and broken time and again. Many were never even recognized by the tribes that supposedly signed them. Even if they were never formally recognized, I plan on exploring the boundaries of these lands the treaties set out for my native ancestors by my European ancestors. After finding the historical reference maps and plotting the boundaries, with modern equipment such as a GPS, Google Earth, and a camera as my guide, I will go out and find these borders in the landscape and photograph both inside and outside the imaginary lines set down in these treaties. I won’t often know what to expect in an area when I go, I will be crossing both modern physical and political boundaries in my journey to explore the land that was so important and so hotly contested by two groups of my ancestors. The intersections and interactions between these groups are what drove the history of this hemisphere. Many of the treaty lines set down over two centuries ago still can be seen as part of the landscape. Roads are called Treaty Line or Boundary Road. County lines follow the paths. Even fields and forests sometimes seem to obey these treaties and stick to their own side.
Making the photographs using preset conditions instead of my own ideas of photographic beauty is a process that is hard to accept, but important for my process. The arbitrary notion of the borders and how the landscape has changed surrounding these historic lines is what I am looking for when shooting. The photographs are overlaid as a grid over the specific treaty map where they were shot. The photos will all be the same size one and one third inches by two inches. The print shape is decided by the shape of the treaty. The overall print size will be determined by the number of prints.