Buffalo Ballad: On the Trail of an American Icon

A collection of black and white images taken by Heidi and Hans-Jurgen Koch taken on their travels through bison country.

Thunder rolled across the prairie - and then there was silence... It was probably more than 30 million American bison roaming the plains of the Midwest. Nothing was more powerful in the prairie, neither physically nor spiritually. With the arrival of the European settlers massive slaughter began. The (hi)story of the bison is a parable about globalization and the interplay of technological progress, capitalism, and a lack of understanding of ecological contexts. The prairie vanished with the bison. Now the bison returns. And this is not nostalgia. The bison is a real existing and socio-cultural phenomenon. It is a current political issue in the dispute between cattle breeders and the bison lobby. The photographers traveled through the center of the bison country, from North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, to Montana. The magical black-and-white photographs of the bison translate the vision into reality. Buffalo Ballad is an homage to the American soul.