Last year while visiting America, the Sisters traced the journey of their American ancestors as they pioneered westward, before settling under Montana’s Big Sky.
“Stories and songs of our family lineage were uncovered, recounted and shared as we travelled. These photographs are a record of our time spent in Wibaux, Montana (population 580), the place where our Great grandmother Verona was born a hundred years ago, in a one room shack.
The landscape is a hard one; wild and untamed. Wibaux lays in the shadows of the jagged Missouri Breaks and is surrounded by the low rolling Badlands. Following old land-claim records, as well as local maps, we walked our family’s old property line, crossed the land they laboured, and gazed up at the same night stars they would have. In the morning, we dressed up like our Great grandma might have and watched the sunrise over the town cemetery.”
Above: The Sisters Hayes, A Portrait of The Sisters Hayes in Big Sky Country, 2012 + exhibition documentation
