American photographer and visual artist David Maisel, whose large-format aerial photographs highlight industrial scars on natural landscapes, will discuss the politics and aesthetics of radically human-altered environments with co-curator of the Unsettled Nature exhibition, Joanna Marsh. Maisel has spent decades making aerial images of environmentally damaged sites, both throughout the United States and, most recently, in Chile’s ecologically sensitive Atacama Desert. He and Marsh consider how we can expand our notions of landscape by including damaged sites like open pit mines, areas of clearcut deforestation, and massive water reclamation zones. This program is part of a series of conversations with artists featured in Unsettled Nature: Artists Reflect on the Age of Humans. Learn more about the series and the exhibition here. This program will be presented as a Zoom video webinar. A link will be emailed to all registrants. Image credit/Caption: American Mine (Carlin NV 1) features open pit mines on the Carlin Trend, the most prolific gold mining district in the Western Hemisphere. Mines from this region are the source of devastating mercury emissions, released when ore is heated during the process of gold extraction. David Maisel’s abstract compositions frustrate the ability to put locations in context. By removing all points of reference—including people and horizon lines—Maisel focuses attention on the otherworldly appearance of large-scale land use and its disorienting effects. (© David Maisel/ Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery.) |