Held in conjunction with the Vermont Curators Group’s statewide initiative, 2020 Vision: Looking at the World Through Technology, these exhibits will show how advances in photographic technology have been accompanied by parallel shifts in aesthetics as well as photographers’ capacity to effectively record and examine history. This focus on the history of photography and on prominent contemporary photographers reflects the confluence of art and activism.
In this highly symbolic year, we present eight exhibitions in three segments:
I-HISTORIC – Democratization of the Documentary Impulse (June 2 —August 29, 2021)
II- CONTEMPORARY – Documenting Disaster (July 8 – September 27)
III - FUTURE – The Ascendancy of Art in Activism (September 30, — January 16, 2021).
Through these exhibitions we honor the work of artists, photographers, photojournalists, scientists, and writers around the world who have worked to shed light on all aspects of human life, illuminating the most urgent challenges facing humanity and the environment. Their work has impressed upon us, at different junctures in history, the responsibility we have to act with greater respect for the profound interconnectedness of our society.
Our Year in Photography highlights the work of six contemporary photographers who have called attention to the changing landscape of our times and others who have set the stage for the Farm Security Administration’s documentation of America during the Great Depression. An accompanying Teaching Portfolio of the history of photography displays examples of the evolution of technology and the significance of this medium.
The Contemporary and Future segments of our programming feature seminal projects by our six artists: 1 - Princeton Professor Emeritus, Emmet Gowin – The Nevada Test Site, gelatin silver prints; 2 - Senior Lecturer in Photography at Dartmouth, Virginia Beahan – Salton Sea, archival digital color prints; 3 - Photojournalist and war photographer, James Nachtwey – Photographs, archival digital prints; 4 - 2016 USA FELLOWSHIP / Ford Foundation award recipient, April Surgent – 'Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program field station, at Pearl and Hermes Atoll. pin-hole camera prints and cameo glass engravings; 5 - Photojournalist, Jon Brack – Chernobyl 2020, panoramic color prints and Virtual Reality Glasses; and 6 - Peter Moriarty, Emeritus Professor of Art from the Vermont State Colleges, the author of Lotte Jacobi Photographs, GODINE Boston, MA 2003, is the advisor to the Historic segment of our programming and exhibiting, Warm Room: Photographs of Historic Greenhouses.