Date/Time
Date(s) - Friday, February 9, 2018
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Location
Smith College Museum of Art
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WHAT: Dusk at Macleish: seven ecological graphic poems on the campus of Smith College
WHERE: Smith College Art Museum, 20 Elm Street Northampton, MA
WHEN: Feb. 9, Mar. 9, Apr. 13, and May 11 from 7-8 pm.
On four Northampton Arts Nights Out this spring, photographer Pamela Petro and poet Naila Moreira will present an art exhibit, Dusk at Macleish, of seven ecological graphic poems on the campus of Smith College. A word and image digital presentation projected on a triptych of screens, the exhibition will take place within a pop-up parklet on the green by the Smith College Art Museum on Feb. 9, Mar. 9, Apr. 13, and May 11 from 7-8 pm.
The photos and poems of Dusk at Macleish reflect on the fragile moment in ecological history in which we live, suggesting liminal moments between light/dark, seen/intuited, day/night, present/future. The project juxtaposes moved-image photographs taken at dusk by Petro with poems written simultaneously by Moreira, created in a series of visits to the Smith College Macleish Field Station in Whately, Massachusetts. The simultaneity of artistic production allows for a deep focus on place, setting, and ecological framing, making the landscape itself a powerful collaborator in the work.
The series forms part of Arts Afield, a program at the MacLeish Field Station in which artists and writers visit particular sites—a pool, fern grove, homestead, etc.—over a 200-year period and record impressions. The Arts Afield initiative seeks an increased role for artists and writers at the station, encouraging use of the station’s natural and built resources for students, faculty, staff and visitors to create and share artistic work. In particular, Arts Afield will connect to the Long Term Ecological Reflections national program, a consortium of academic field stations that aim to take a 200-year look at ecological changes on field station grounds by encouraging artists and writers to reflect on fixed locations in the landscape. The work will be contributed to a permanent, public online archive seeking to contemplate ecological shifts and threats through lenses other than the strictly scientific.
Each poem/photography pairing in Dusk at Macleish contemplates one single Long Term Ecological Reflections site at Macleish Field Station.
Contact: Naila Moreira, nmoreira@smith.edu, and Pamela Petro, ppetro@smith.edu
This project is supported by grants from the Northampton Arts Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency; and from the Smith College Center for the Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability (CEEDS); Smith College Landscape Studies Department; and Smith College Poetry Center.