Nice accidentally running into yourself; this from a didactic at the Tweed Museum's "1000 Words" exhibition, which opens formally September 22. "Vance Gellert's body of work, titled
Sleeping Giant (from the
Ojibwe word "Mesabi"), shows a people struggling with economies of
dwindling scale, resource management, and conservationism coming into
conflict with entrenched practices. Though he describes his subjects as
“indomitable,” mythically heroic in their efforts to wrestle a meager
living from rock, his photographs navigate a terrain caught between the
brute scale of mining operations and an imperiled middle-class existence
— as in a panoramic image of backyard playgrounds perched atop an open
ore pit... Even while heavily focused on matters concerning industry and
extraction, Gellert’s attention to ways of life that merit retention —
high school hockey, porketta, civic engagement, Finnish heritage — show
just how tenuously held such things are." From
Well Beyond Lake Wobegon, MNArtists.org.
Full article here
