Photographer, researcher, and preservationist Sheila Nadimi has been honored with the Utah Historical Society’s 2025 Outstanding Achievement Award in recognition of her decades-long project Eagle Village, which documents the site and memory of the Intermountain Indian School in Brigham City. The award acknowledges Nadimi’s extraordinary service in preserving and presenting a complex chapter of Utah’s history through photography, exhibition, and publication.

Over a span of 25 years, Nadimi photographed the slow deterioration and eventual demolition of the school’s buildings, many of which bore murals created by Native students—expressions of cultural identity, resilience, and creativity. In 2025, her work culminated in a solo exhibition at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) (see our review here) and the publication of Eagle Village: A Deep Mapping of Fallow Architecture. The volume spans 375 pages and presents dozens of medium‑format photographs documenting the buildings and grounds of the school in Brigham City, Utah. The book details how the site began as a WWII military hospital, evolved into the largest off‑reservation Native American boarding school in the U.S., and was ultimately demolished and redeveloped. With its textured narrative of architecture, memory, and agency, the book functions as both fine‑art volume and historical archive, offering readers a deeply immersive visual and scholarly exploration of a layered chapter in Utah’s heritage.

Nadimi’s project has been widely praised for centering Indigenous perspectives and for preserving visual records that would otherwise have been lost. Collaborating with alumni, scholars, and cultural institutions, she has created a powerful resource for education, remembrance, and dialogue. As one nominator wrote, “Her work is both a personal act of witnessing and a public service—creating a lasting record that expands the historical narrative, honors Native creativity, and invites future generations to look more closely at the spaces we build, abandon, and remember.”

The Utah Historical Society’s annual awards recognize those whose work fosters curiosity about the past, informs the present, and strengthens Utah’s shared future. Nadimi’s Eagle Village does all three.

15 Bytes

UTAH’S ART MAGAZINE SINCE 2001, 15 Bytes is published by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.