This photograph was taken in Benedicte Wrensted’s studio in Pocatello, Idaho, sometime between 1895 and 1912. Wrensted was a Danish immigrant whose studio became a gathering place for the Shoshone and Bannock peoples from the neighboring Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Her glass plate negatives sat unidentified in the National Archives for decades, labeled only as “Portraits of Indians from Southeastern Idaho Reservations.” We do not know this woman’s name. She was most likely Shoshone or Bannock.

The wide-brimmed hat she wears is a clue. Research into the region suggests that the Indigenous people of southeastern Idaho who avoided abject poverty in the wake of government land policies were largely those who went into ranching — and those who ranched wore Western clothing, including exactly this style of hat. She may have survived because she adapted. Adaptation at that cost leaves marks.

Behind her, pressed into a background of blue-toned archival photographs of Indigenous families, is a government advertisement from the era: Indian Land for Sale. The same text appears elsewhere in this exhibition. It was always there, surrounding these women, defining the terms of their survival.

She wears a blazing red hat, a red neckerchief, a teal vest. She looks directly at the camera. Her expression contains everything: strength and fatigue, resilience and resignation. She does not perform either suffering or dignity. She simply is.