Taylor Irvine is a photojournalist from the Flathead Reservation in Montana, whose work focuses on nuanced portrayals of life in native communities.

Her recent project examines the U.S. government-imposed system that defines native identity through fractional measures of ancestry.

Tonight, she shares her brief but spectacular take on questions of belonging.

For a long time, I was really hesitant on photographing natives and regalia, seeing those images,

and seeing all in those images, really personally to tell the other side of the story.

You know, not the still-work, not disappearing, not sad, not vulnerable, but this powerful

communities that are doing great

work and have amazing people in them.

I grew up on the Flyhead Reservation.

It's in northwest Montana, I was going to buy big mountains, a lot of forests, a lot of trees.

Growing up, I didn't think that you could be a photographer.

I think that was like a career that you could actually make money in the living off of.

When I left home for college, I was in a class that was a prerequisite. It was called Media History and Literacy, and there was a chapter on photography. When I'd seen those photos from 9-11, the impact those photos had on me, you know, decades later, later and how I felt released in them.

Really inspired me and when you want to do that too

and tell stories from my home that that impact those photos had on me decades later and how I felt when I seen them.

Really inspired me and many want to do that too and tell stories from my home that reached

people in the same way.

The power of photography to connect people and to make us realize like we're more like

than different.

One of my goals is just to photograph Native as being people.

We're at the community, part of a larger world. And so show me the other side of what Native America looks like.

From somebody who's from New America was really important to me.

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