Then and Now: Photographs by Sebastião Salgado
An exhibition curated and designed
by Lélia Wanick Salgado"Then and Now" was the inaugural exhibition in the Brower Center's Hazel Wolf Gallery from May 2009 through January 2010.
This exhibition presented a selection of images spanning a career in documentary photography by renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. His images tell the story of an era, tracing the human and environmental impacts of modern industrial civilization through the lives of workers, the rural poor and the displaced. These powerful photographs were selected from Salgado’s long term projects: Other Americas, Sahel, the End of the Road, Workers, Migrations and Africa. Also on view were select images from his “work in progress,” Genesis, which began in 2004 and will be completed in 2011. These images reveal nature – landscapes, flora, fauna and human settlements – in its earliest state.
In his native country, Sebastião and his wife Lélia work together on an environmental restoration project called Instituto Terra in Brazil. The project's mission is to restore a portion of Brazil's Atlantic forest, raise environmental awareness, and work on small economic development projects benefiting the communities living in that high biodiversity area.
Sebastião Salgado's work – both as a photographer and as an activist – exemplifies art’s potential to inspire action.
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The Lake Project: Photographs By David Maisel
February 10 - May 21, 2010
In 2001, David Maisel photographed at Owens Lake, once a 200-square-mile lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in California. The resulting Lake Project offers stunning aerial images of a fertile valley transformed into an arid stretch of land.
Beginning in 1913, the Owens River was diverted to bring water to Los Angeles. By 1926, the depleted lake exposed vast mineral flats, and the lakebed soon became the highest source of particulate matter pollution in the U.S., emitting some 300,000 tons of carcinogens annually. Blooms of bacterial organisms emerged from the little water that remained, turning it a deep red. Viewed from the air, vestiges of the lake appear as a river of blood, a bisected vein, or a galaxy’s map.
As a stunning work of both art and advocacy, The Lake Project helped to contribute to public awareness and mitigation efforts over the last nine years.
Presented in partnership with Kala Art Institute
Related Resources
Learn more about Owens Lake and the impact of our water management choices by connecting with any of the following organizations:
The Owens Vallery Committee (ovcweb.org)
Eastern Sierra Audubon (esaudubon.org)
Audubon California (ca.audubon.org)
The Nature Conservancy (nature.org)
The Mono Lake Committee (monolake.org)
Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District (gbuapcd.org)Related reading:
http://www.ovcweb.org/OwensValley/OwensLake.html
http://www.hcn.org/issues/222/11102- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Water, Rivers and People / Agua, Ríos y Pueblos
Images of the Global Effort to Defend Rivers and Human Rights
Presented in partnership with International Rivers and the Madera Group
June 10 – August 27, 2010
The result of an international collaboration, the David Brower Center’s current exhibition is an homage to those who fight to defend rivers and the people who depend on them. With striking imagery by celebrated photographers such as Robert Dawson, “Water, Rivers and People” shows inspiring examples of rivers that have been protected by citizen action, as well as community-led efforts to provide water for people in affordable, sustainable and effective ways.
Riverine communities around the world, from California to Cambodia, have faced similar damage to their natural resources and social cohesion, and have faced repression and disregard of their cultures and opinions. This exhibition is a testament to the vibrancy of the international movement to protect rivers and assert the rights of river-dependent communities.
The exhibit features case studies of rivers and dams, other destructive water projects and policies such as mines and privatization, as well as river protection and community water-supply success stories. All texts are available in English and Spanish.
Featured photographers include Rogelio Allepuz, Steve Benson, Francesca Casciarri and Eirik Linder, Robert Dawson, Frontera Images / Gonzolo Pérez, Conchita Guerra, Roberto Bear Guerra, Roberta Guimarães, Pierre Montavon, Luc Olivier, Karen Retief, Karen Robinson, James Rodriguez, J.F. Souchard, Brent Stirton / Getty Images, Luo Wen-Da.
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Related Resources
Roberto (Bear) Guerra (bearguerra.com)
Robert Dawson Photography (robertdawson.com)
American Rivers (americanrivers.org)
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