Tailyr Irvine

Missoula, MT
Portfolio

Tailyr Irvine is a Salish and Kootenai journalist born and raised on the Flathead Reservation in western Montana. Her work focuses on providing in-depth representations of the lives and complex issues within the diverse communities that make up Native America.

Project: Where the Bitterroot Blooms
For 15 years, Tailyr Irvine has documented the lived experience of her family as members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Through an intimate, family-centered lens, her work explores how culture, language, and traditions are carried from generation to generation.

Building on her previous work examining the legacy of blood quantum and its impact on Native identity, Where the Bitterroot Blooms shifts the focus from government-imposed definitions to her own family’s understanding of belonging.

Through photography and audio interviews, Irvine will document the return and continuation of cultural practices and the resilience, grief, and love that sustain them.