February 2019

Endangered

Glitz/Jessup

 

The ENDANGERED exhibit brings together two photographers who have for many years been documenting significant archaeological and natural places at risk from development, climate change and—simply—time. Monica Glitz has documented over one hundred UNESCO World Heritage sites during her travels. For the past ten years Philip Jessup has been documenting natural landscapes and nearby communities dependent on them at risk from climate change.

This exhibit features a cross section of Glitz’s work over the past twenty years including her most recent images. Philip’s survey of coastal marshes in Mexico, Louisiana, and Massachusetts vulnerable to sea level rise are also exhibited.

Both photographers made the transition from film to digital and are now pushing the limits of technology to enhance their visual preferences and personal statements. Glitz has embraced a 19th century chemical process, gum bichromate printing, that uses digital separations to create timeless images that hark back to stereographs. Jessup has adopted high definition industrial image capture that creates rich color that recalls the eras of Kodachrome slides and Cibachrome prints.

While this exhibit contrasts their two different artistic visions, the images speak to a common theme: beauty that we must cherish before it disappears. All of the locales in the exhibit are in various stages of conservation by NGOs and government worldwide. Public advocacy and political commitment can save these areas if we take the right steps.

 

 

 

Endangered

 

Select images from

Ancient Splendour

World Heritage Sites

 

Monica has taken the road less travelled to explore some of the planet’s most significant historical locations. Her travels over the past 20 years have inspired Monica to photograph more than 100 UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Her aim is to engage the curiosity of a wider audience that may not have direct access to these destinations, to help others see the magnificent past and to instill the idea that these locations are worth the effort and cost to preserve them. So much has already been lost forever – be it from natural means such as weather & time, or mankind’s activities such as progress, tourism, agriculture, or senseless destruction due to war and terrorist activities.

The images in this exhibition show us far away places from another time. Often the smallest details tell the best stories, from the architectural remnants of a civilization that thrived thousands of years ago to the tranquility of a mist shrouded path in the mountains. Monica is drawn to places where you can lose yourself in time and place, and her photographs capture a moment in time. Even though it is a moment in our time, the images are a reflection of the past and evoke a sense of wonder. What was it like for the people who lived there long ago … what were their stories? Her photography is a portrait of the beauty she sees from an emotional perspective, and to challenge the mind and imagination to ask questions about the past … who? why? how?

This series also honours the past by being presented in two alternative printing formats with historical roots from the 1800’s: platinum palladium and tri-color bichromate gum over palladium. The extraordinary combination of images from historically significant World Heritage sites with these alternative printing processes creates beautiful unique permanent prints which will withstand the test of time for future generations to see.