In this body of work, I aim to gain a deeper understanding of my home in the Black Hills of South Dakota and in that, a deeper understanding of the American West more broadly. As Eudroa Welty writes, “One place understood helps us understand all other places better.”

The Black Hills are unceded lands of the Oceti Sakowin. The legacy of extraction that I investigate is a key factor in the ongoing treaty violations and injustices experienced by the Lakota people.