The Persistence of Land

Description

Time and again we return to the land as a source of spiritual renewal and reflection. The land is also a repository of distilled history, containing the obscure and sometimes troubling stories of our past. Landscape art both expresses and explores these connections and tensions. It reveals a story of our ever-evolving relationship with the land and places we call home.

Sherwin will share his decade-long photography project, Vanishing Points, that focuses on significant sites of Indigenous American presence, including sacred landforms, earthworks, documented archaeological sites and contested battlegrounds. The Vanishing Points project was published as a Monograph in July 2021 by German publisher, Kehrer Verlag, one of the leading publishers of fine art photography in the world.

This presentation by Michael Sherwin, associate professor of art in WVU’s School of Art & Design, will connect his own place-based art making and research with objects on display in the exhibit, "Trees on the Mountain: Landscapes from Appalachia and Beyond," currently on view in the McGee gallery.

The presentation will take place at 6:00 PM in the Museum Education Center’s Grand Hall. Sherwin will be selling signed copies of the book following the presentation. Guests are invited to view "Trees on the Mountain" in the Art Museum’s McGee Gallery which will be open from 5:00-7:30 PM. This is an in-person event with a virtual option for attendance.