Two new exhibitions in the Carleton College Perlman Teaching Museum will address the impact of climate change through photography and other new media. Featuring the work of two Carleton alumni, Christina Seely ’98 and Ken Tape ’99, both exhibits explore time, space, and evidence of climate change in the Arctic landscape.
The public is invited to celebrate the fall exhibitions on Friday, September 19 with an opening reception from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in the Weitz Center for Creativity. The event begins with a lecture by Tape entitled “A Century of Warming and Change in the Arctic” at 7 p.m. in Room 326 of the Weitz Center, followed by light refreshments and a celebration of the fall exhibition in the Perlman Teaching Museum from 8 to 9:30 p.m.
On display in the Braucher Gallery of the Perlman Teaching Museum, Seely’s “Markers of Time” uses evocative photos and videos, shot in the Arctic Circle and equatorial regions, to meditate on climate change and how time is measured and experienced. The multi-layered exhibit combines photographic media, texts, and video installations to consider our complex and ever-changing relationship to systems of the planet. Media builds conversations with both science and art history; works address geologic time, man-made vs. natural time, and how climate change is altering seemingly fixed natural cycles.
A 1998 graduate of Carleton College, Seely is an assistant professor of art at Dartmouth College. “Book Interventions,” an exhibition curated by Seely, juxtaposing books as embodiments of visual and scientific perspectives, can be found in the Gould Library. For more about her work, visit www.christinaseely.com.
In the Kaemmer Family Gallery, Tape’s “Then and Now: The Changing Arctic Landscape” pairs decades-old, large-format photos of Alaska’s Arctic with contemporary views from the same vantage points. The exhibit sets changes in the northern landscape into stark relief, providing clear context about the Arctic ecosystem while celebrating pioneering geologists working in Alaska.
A 1999 graduate of Carleton with a BA in geology, Tape is an ecologist at the Institute of Northern Engineering at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He returns to campus this fall term to teach a course entitled “Climate Variability and High Latitude Ecosystems.” Tape’s book, The Changing Arctic Landscape (University of Alaska Press), is a stunning reminder of the inexorable change in the Arctic landscape. A collection of his photographs can be found online at www.arcticcirclephoto.com.
On Tuesday, October 14 at 7 p.m. in the Weitz Center for Creativity Cinema, Seely will present “Changing Time: An Artistic Inquiry into Climate Change, Building Perspectives” with discussion to follow.
Christina Seely’s “Markers of Time” and Ken Tape’s “Then and Now: The Changing Arctic Landscape” will be on display through November 19 in the Braucher Gallery and Kaemmer Family Gallery of the Perlman Teaching Museum, located in the Weitz Center for Creativity (320 Third Street in Northfield). Admission to the museum is free. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday-Wednesday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday and Friday; and 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. For more information, contact Laurel Bradley, director and curator of the Perlman Teaching Museum, at (507) 222-4342 or visit online at go.carleton.edu/museum.
