Zoë Marieh Urness

Urness was adopted, with her twin sister, by their Norwegian great-great uncle and aunt in Stanwood, Washington, and was introduced to tribal arts and history at the Alaskan Native American Cultural Association.[1] She received her first camera from her grandmother at age seven. "The camera allowed me to relate to people," Urness says. "The subjects were endless and I explored them through the lens."[1] She earned art degrees from Skagit Valley College and the former Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California.

After graduating college in 2008, Urness freelanced in Santa Barbara and Seattle, shooting for Outside and Trend magazines.[1] In 2014, she created a Kickstarter project with "an emphasis on the critically endangered languages captured with video and still imagery"[1] and began photographing tribes across the country, including visits to the Havasupai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, the Hopi at Second Mesa, the Apache Crown Dancers at Monument Valley, and Alaskan natives at the Biennial Celebrations in Juneau.[2]

Urness showed her Alaskan work at the Indigenous Fine Art Market and twice at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2014, winning Best in Division and Best in Category; the images were also recognized by the California-based Autry Museum of the American West, the Art Basel fair in Miami and the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market in Arizona.[1] She has also shown at Photo L.A. SPECTRUM, Native Treasures Indian Arts Festival, and co-owns the ZOHI Gallery in Santa Fe. Her photograph Dec. 5, 2016: No Spiritual Surrender, at the Oceti Sakowin Camp on Standing Rock Sioux Reservation at the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, was entered for a Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography by World Literature Today, where it appeared on the cover of the magazine's May 2017 issue, "New Native Writing: From Wounded Knee to Standing Rock."[3] From her artist's statement, her work aims to send the message, "We are here. And we are thriving, through our traditions."[2]