Land and Lens: Photographers Envision the Environment

Explore the digital catalogue for the exhibit

Featuring seventy-one images spanning the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, the works on view in Land and Lens: Photographers Envision the Environment, an exhibition several years in the making, come primarily from the Museum’s rich holdings of historic and contemporary photography. Among the wide range of artists represented are historic figures Ansel Adams, Arthur Rothstein, Eliot Porter and Alfred Stieglitz, as well as many contemporaries. Among these Jamey Stillings, Richard Misrach, David Maisel, James Balog, and Edward Burtynsky are well known for their concerned image-making.

James Balog (American, b. 1952), Greenland Ice Sheet, 28 June 2009, Adam LeWinter surveys Birthday Canyon, from the portfolio Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers, 2009, chromogenic color print on paper, 16 x 24 inches. Collection of Middlebury College Museum of Art. Purchase with funds provided by the Fine Arts Acquisition Fund, 2015.006.

Land and Lens, which remains on view through Sunday, December 10, was curated by Kirsten Hoving, Professor of History of Art and Architecture, with the aid of numerous research assistants, interns, and students in her classes. With support from the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation and the Digital Liberal Arts Initiative at Middlebury College, Professor Hoving has produced an innovative and comprehensive digital catalogue of the works on view. Accessible on Museum iPads or personal tablets and smartphones, the digital catalogue enhances understanding of the photographs through short videos and written descriptions of their respective photographic processes or environmental contexts, as well as discussions of their art historical importance. Selected works are interpreted through original music composed and performed by Middlebury College students.

Since its earliest days, photography has helped us comprehend the beauty, complexity, and fragility of the natural world. Spanning more than 150 years, the works on display in Land and Lens reflect the deep commitment of their makers to recording and responding to the world around them. From sublime landscapes of the American West to images of melting glaciers that underscore our current environmental crisis, the exhibition is organized to illustrate a selection of themes that range from wilderness and water to the built environment and the cosmos. The breadth and diversity of photographs together with their digital interpretation provide visitors an opportunity to contemplate the wide variety of ways photographers have envisioned the environment.

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