Leah Sobsey works at the intersection of nineteenth century
photographic processes and twenty-first century digital technology.
Sobsey photographs bird skins, bleached bones, clipped ferns, and
tattered shoes that she unearths from the dark drawers of national
park museum collections. Plucked from their original context, she
illuminates them with sun and light, giving them new definition.
The subject matter of each series she creates is dictated by her
discoveries, bridging past to present, honoring both the specimens
she works with and the medium of photography.Her project is
particularly timely during this centennial year of national parks
service, and as museum collections are in a current state of crisis
due to diminishing funding and support. Her focus on the parks is a
way of preserving these fragile specimens that represent American
history. This body of work sheds light on the importance and
significance of the collections and their impact on science,
history, the humanities and the hundreds of thousands of visitors
who leave their footprints on our national parks. Leah Sobsey is an
artist and educator. Her combined art and anthropology background
shaped her love of stories and gave her the tools to artfully map
and investigate her own history and now others. Sobsey primarily
works in 19th century photographic processes intertwined with
digital technology. She received an MFA from the San Francisco Art
Institute and a BA in Anthropology and Sociology from Guilford
College. She has exhibited nationally in galleries, museums and
public spaces, and her work is held in private and public
collections across the country. She has taught at the San Francisco
Art Institute and the Maine Photographic Workshops, and currently
teaches at the Center for Documentary studies at Duke University
and is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of North
Carolina, Greensboro. Sobsey is the co-founder of the Visual
History Collaborative and one of the core artists in Bull City
Summer, a collaborative documentary project that explores the
Durham Bulls AAA baseball team. Bull City Summer, the book,
published by Daylight Books was released in 2014 and is one of
their top sellers. Sobsey’s images have appeared in The New
Yorker, the Paris Review Daily, Slate.com and many more. Xandra
Eden is Executive Director & Chief Curator of DiverseWorks in
Houston. She was previously Curator of Exhibitions for the
Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC. Since 2003, she has
organized over 60 exhibitions of work by national and international
contemporary artists. Recent major exhibitions include Zones of
Contention: After the Green Line (2015); Nancy Rubins: Drawing,
Sculpture, Studies (2014); and Diana Al-Hadid (2013). Eden held
positions at the The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada, the
Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York, and Women & Their Work
Gallery, Austin. She received her BFA from SUNY Purchase and MA
from CCS at Bard College. Dr. John Fitzpatrick is a native of St.
Paul, Minnesota, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University
in 1974, and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1978.
Since 1995 he has been Director of the Cornell Laboratory of
Ornithology and professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at
Cornell University. Previously (1988-1995), he was Executive
Director of Archbold Biological Station, a private ecological
research foundation in central Florida. From 1978 to 1989 he was
Curator of Birds and Chairman of the Department of Zoology at
Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. He is a Fellow of the
American Ornithologists' Union, served as its President
(2000-2002), and in 1985 received its highest research honor
(Brewster Award) for his co-authored book Florida Scrub-Jay:
Ecology and Demography of a Cooperative Breeding Bird.
General
Imprint: |
Daylight Books
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
May 2023 |
Photographers: |
Leah Sobsey
|
Contributors: |
John Fitzpatrick
• Xandra Eden
|
Dimensions: |
254 x 254 x 20mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
128 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-942084-17-4 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-942084-17-X |
Barcode: |
9781942084174 |
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