Mon, September 12, 2016 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM LIU INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL ISSUES. Free. Join us for a short talk about our new Lobby Gallery exhibition by Liu Scholar and photographer Graham McDowell, with opportunities to discuss the exhibition with Graham and other attendees. Hors d’oeuvres will be provided.
Photographs will hang from September 1st to November 30th, 2016
High places––mountains and the Arctic––are home to some of the planet’s most distinctive cultures, unique ecosystems, and compelling landscapes; they are also among the most environmentally sensitive areas on the planet. This sensitivity, and its attendant social and ecological implications, is a timely concern now that the planet has entered the Anthropocene, a period when human activities are driving rapid, global-scale changes in the biosphere. However, while scholarly work on the Anthropocene is of growing interest, engagement with the topic to date has been primarily theoretical.
In this exhibition, environmental change researcher Graham McDowell draws together photographs from his work in high places (e.g. Greenland, the Himalayas, and the Canadian Arctic) to help ground-truth our understanding of this new period in Earth’s history. His photographs reveal the multitude of ways in which places, people, and ecosystems in high mountains and the Arctic experience and respond to environmental change, drawing attention to the tension between profound change and often underappreciated occurrences of socio-ecological continuity. His exhibition aims to provoke more meaningful and productive discussions about how the Anthropocene intersects with concerns related to sustainability, social justice, and human security, within and beyond high places.
Graham is currently a PhD student, Vanier Scholar, Liu Scholar, and Public Scholar at the University of British Columbia, where he is affiliated with the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES).