Photographs of Dakota Access Pipeline Protests in North Dakota

Photographs created by John Willis during six trips from September through December 2016 that document a resistance movement based near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, and eastern edge of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation protesting the Energy Transfer Partners project to construct a petroleum pipeline known as the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at the site and through North Dakota and South Dakota as well as across Iowa into Illinois. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe led the protest with support a grassroots resistance movement known as "Mní Wičóni" (Lakota for “water is life”) and NoDAPL (No Dakota Access Pipeline). Many images also appear in John Willis, Mni Wiconi - Water Is Life Honoring the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and Everywhere in the Ongoing Struggle for Indigenous Sovereignty (Staunton, Virginia: George F. Thompson Publishing, 2019).

Images printed as 224 inkjet color prints document spiritual ceremonies related to the water as well as resistance actions at the proposed drilling site as well as at Bismarck and Mandan in North Dakota. Additionally, many images document temporary camps established by protestors, chiefly the Oceti Sakowin camp (Očhéthi Šakówiŋ is Dakota for "Seven Council Fires" or peoples known by the exonym of Sioux), as well as portraits of activists.

Individual prints are 32.8 x 48.2 centimeters and 61 x 78.7 centimeters. Titled and signed and dated by the photographer on versos of prints. Dates indicate the time of image capture rather than physical creation of the print.

Titles in this guide are from the inscriptions by the photographer on versos of prints. Variant titles from Mni Wiconi - Water Is Life Honoring the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and Everywhere in the Ongoing Struggle for Indigenous Sovereignty (Staunton, Virginia: George F. Thompson Publishing, 2019) as well as from Willis' website, jwillis.net, accessed in April 2021.