In just less than a month, a new environmental photography exhibit opens on April 24, 2008 at the Burke called Fast Moving Water: The Hoh River Story. The exhibit showcases 14 framed color photographs of the Hoh River by acclaimed nature photographer Keith Lazelle.
I have to admit, until recently I knew very little about the Hoh River. I grew up in the backyard of the mighty Columba River, so 50 miles of flowing water in the Olympic Peninsula seemed more like a stream to me. Of course, once I started learning more about the Hoh River, I realized that this small river, tucked away in one of the most beautiful places in the Pacific Northwest, has quite a fascinating story.
The Hoh River helps support one of the planet’s last intact temperate rainforests, the Hoh Rain Forest. Enormous Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and western red cedar trees tower at up to 300 feet and are part of a rich and diverse ecosystem of plants and animals. Bald eagles, northern spotted owls, Roosevelt elk, black bears, bull trout, and salmon are just a few of the species that can commonly be found in the Hoh Rain Forest.
The Hoh River plays a crucial part in sustaining this luscious forest habitat. The waters of the river, and its tributaries, are an important life source for nearly all of the living creatures and green plant life in the forest. That’s all fine and well, but the truly unique feature of the Hoh River is that it is one of the only rivers in the contiguous United States that is in pristine condition—in other words, the Hoh River and its floodplain has escaped the onslaught of damming, logging, and other sorts of development that has affected so many American rivers.
In an age when untouched natural environments are increasingly vulnerable, the Hoh River is an important symbol of why conservation matters. Luckily, groups such as the The Hoh River Trust, our partner in bringing this exhibit to the Burke, have worked hard to protect and preserve the river and the land that surrounds it. One look at the gorgeous photos from Fast Moving Water, and I’m sold. In fact, once that sun comes back out, I might have to a plan a little venture into the rainforest!
- Julia
Photos by Keith Lazelle, on view in Fast Moving Water: The Hoh River Story, April 24-June 6, 2008, Burke Museum.
Some of you might best remember the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition from the exhibit based on the winning photographs that showed at the Burke Museum in 2006.
Read on for details on how to enter this international contest put on by BBC Wildlife Magazine and the Natural History Museum, London before time runs out. Northwest artists have done well in the competition previously – good luck!
- RebeccaLast chance to enter the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition…
Abandon the hide, pack up the waterproofs and start selecting you best shots – only weeks remain to enter the world’s greatest nature photography contest.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition 2008 is open to anyone with an appreciation of nature and a passion for fresh, innovative photography.
Entrants stand to win an impressive £10,000 prize if they are awarded the coveted title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 or share of a £23,550 prize fund if successful in one of the categories.
Closing date for postal entries – Mon., March 24, 2008
Closing date for online entries – Mon., March 31, 2008 (enter online here)
Photo: Zebra Crossing, photograph by Anup Shah (UK). 2007 Specially Commended photo in contest category "Animal Behaviour: Mammals."
Hello museum lovers, this is Julia, the Outreach Assistant at the Burke Museum. I’m a new voice to the Burke Blog and I’m really excited to be writing for it, so I figure it is appropriate that my first post is about a project I’m working on just beyond the doors of the Burke that also excites me. I tend to wear a lot of hats around here. When I’m not helping plan student outreach events, attending campus resource fairs, or writing press releases, I moonlight as a museology graduate student. As a student, one of the projects I’ve become involved in is the University District Museum Without Walls.
What on earth is a Museum Without Walls you might ask? Well it’s hard to define precisely, but it is essentially a way to share the unique and dynamic history and culture of the University District without staying confined to a single building or location. If you’re still feeling confused, here are some examples of upcoming MWW projects:
So keep your eyes and ears open for updates on the University District Museum Without Walls project. In the meantime, keep coming to the museums with walls, like the Burke Museum and the Henry Art Gallery here at the UW!
I’m looking forward to my next post!
- Julia
Photo: Pottery Booth at U-District Street Fair, by Bob Miller, 1971. Courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection.
I was cautious when I first heard that with our upcoming Peoples of the Plateau exhibit, we were going to display the turn of the century photographs of Native American subjects taken by a white man who felt he was documenting a “vanishing” race. In this Sunday’s thoughtful Pacific Northwest Magazine cover story found in the Seattle Times, art critic Sheila Farr mines this same apprehension, and with insight from Roberta Conner (director of the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute, Pendleton, OR) and Steven Grafe (curator of the traveling exhibit), comes to some very helpful conclusions for anyone who plans to see the exhibit and decide for themselves what is the significance of these images to our understanding of history.
Acknowledging the colonialist overtones in his practice, Farr and Grafe still give credit to Moorhouse for his progressive habit of recording the names of people and places in his photographs, an effort not often seen in the work of his contemporaries. Not only do these identifications make the photographs more useful as a historic document, but they also imply that the subjects are real people and places, not just stereotypes and romanticized landscapes.
At the Burke, we’re balancing the Moorhouse presentation with an exhibit of Plateau objects from our own collection. Titled This Place Called Home, the companion exhibit presents the story of the same Native American subjects, but in their own voices, as told through their cultural materials and taped interviews.
I’m excited to see the shows open this weekend and compare the stories the two shows are telling. Will This Place Called Home serve as a test of sorts for the authenticity of the images in Peoples of the Plateau? And how will the historic photos in Peoples of the Plateau inform the context with which we look at the cultural materials in This Place Called Home?
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. The exhibit opens to the public this Sat., Jan. 26.
- Rebecca
Photo: Dr. Whirlwind, Cayuse Tribe, circa 1905, photograph by Lee Moorhouse. From Division of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Library System. On view in Peoples of the Plateau, Burke Museum, Seattle, Jan. 26 – June 8, 2008.
The last of the images are hung and labels are in place. Join us on Sat., June 16, 10 am – 5 pm for the opening day of Yellowstone to Yukon: Freedom to Roam.
Opening Day Schedule
10:15 am ~ Photographer Tour with Florian Schulz
11am ~ “The Origin and Status of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative”
12 pm ~ “The Columbia Highlands - Making the Rockies to Rainforest Connection”
12:30 pm ~ Photographer Tour with Florian Schulz
1:30 pm ~ “Wildlife Bridges Across Interstate 90”
2pm ~ “From the Cascades to Karakoram – a global exploration of bears”
2:30 pm ~ Photographer Tour with Florian Schulz
3 pm ~ “Bringing Critical Wildlife Conservation Issues to the Public”
I’m most looking forward to the tours with featured photographer, Florian Schulz (pictured left). I’ve been working with his images for months now in preparation for the show, but when I finally met him and heard him talk about trailing grizzlies through the mountains for 10 years, it struck me how deep the stories these pictures tell really are. Florian hangs off of precipices, dives underwater, tracks animals that could kill him in an instant, and sits still for hours and hours at a time just to capture that one glorious instant we see in an image on the gallery wall. It seems like there is so much wisdom living in those mountains, and it lives in him now too.
- Rebecca
