“Dangerous Landscapes” Exhibit, Reception, and Panel Discussion at the UA Gallery

Dangerous Landscapes header that says "dangerous landscapes"

The University of Alabama Gallery and the Collaborative Arts Research Initiative are proud to present the exhibition, Dangerous Landscapes: Legacies of Nineteenth-Century Progress in the Age of Climate Change, August 6 through September 24, 2021, the UA Gallery at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts center in downtown Tuscaloosa. A First Friday reception will be held on September 3, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. 

Image showing a pile of coal at the end of a wooden gravel road on the left and a black-and-white image overlooking a town on the right.

Dangerous Landscapes, organized by Dr. Teresa Cribelli and artist and Assistant Professor Allison Grant, places contemporary photographs of chemical and fossil fuel industries in West Alabama by Grant in dialog with large-scale reproductions of nineteenth-century images of progress that were first published in William Cullen Bryant’s 1872 two-volume Picturesque America. Those original images of progress in nature symbolized boundless possibilities and unending natural resources. By juxtaposing those images against photos of their legacy’s environmental impact, Dangerous Landscapes asks viewers to consider how present-day climate change has resulted from the environmental legacy of nineteenth-century ideas of progress.

A panel discussion titled, “An Uncertain Climate: Alabama in the Age of Climate Change” will take place on September 21, 2021, from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. in the Camellia Room on the 2nd floor of Gorgas Library. Panelists will be Christine Bassett, Scientist/Engineer III, Cherokee Nation in support of NOAA’s Weather Program Office, Cribelli, and Grant.

Dangerous Landscapes is funded by a Joint Pilot for Arts Research grant from the Collaborative Arts Research Initiative, an interdisciplinary, arts-focused research engine that maximizes the impact of faculty arts research. Click here to read more about the exhibition.