Willms strives to communicate the emotional environment surrounding his subjects through a poetic, methodical approach to making pictures. From the baking highways of the American Southwest, to the frozen railways of Siberia, Ian has photographed the narratives of disempowered peoples, wounded environments and forgotten cultures. Over the last four years, Ian has been exploring the impacts of Canada’s Oil Sands boom, being felt within the remote Indigenous communities of Northern Alberta. His most recent project is a photographic ode to his pacifist Mennonite ancestors, who endured five centuries of violent oppression throughout Europe and Russia.