Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter | reporter@fitzhugh.ca
Here’s a hot topic: How do you like to spend your summer in a climate change climate?
This is generally seen as a time of fire and fireworks, but those can have serious consequences. Many should be afraid of fire today.
Photographer Heather Magus has another view: Fire is important for ecology and the natural cycles of life in the world. She took her camera to the old wildfires of the Borrell forests around Alberta, capturing some of the new life after the landfill.
The Carbon Exhibition is designed to spark a conversation if you do not catch her eye with the stunning nature photograph of 15 large format images. Fire weeds, of course, don’t just make beautiful pictures, especially when those roses are surrounded by charcoal trees.
Grande Pride, a graduate of art and humanities, says she is not a professional photographer, but she already has a strong understanding of the role that photography plays in public opinion about wildfires.
She commented on how wildfire photography focuses on the traditional apocalyptic, a large flame that consumes trees and houses; People and animals flee in fear; Smoke skies below the wastelands.
During the cyclone, she returned home to northern Alberta to get acquainted with the Borrell forests. She found burnt areas around Lake Medhanit, including the Excellor fire.
“I thought to myself, ‘Putting photos side by side with words, trying to create a better understanding of what wildfires are now and what they could be,'” she said.
She did not expect to be exposed to “carbon” as she tried to spread public opinion about wildfires. The exhibition pauses to reflect on the fact that wildfires are an important link in forest life. Consider the lodge pine, which needs fire to release the seeds.
According to local historian Stephen Pinen, the relationship between fire and humans is relatively complex. Element carbon provides an important view of the title of this show. After all, carbon is a major component of all biological organisms, but it is one of the most obvious residues after fire.
In her statement, Magusin commented that Alberta’s natural ecosystems and the oil and gas industry are irreconcilable, and that “statements of various millenniums are only a waste of fire.”
As she embarks on the project, to reconcile her fears and anxieties with the fire, her photographs use their own phoenix-like views of the darkened and destroyed landscape.
“It’s challenging because these photos are divorced from my context and from my ecological point of view, which led to their Genesis.”
She hopes that people will use the education package to enhance their understanding and appreciation of her work and the important ecological role that wildfires play in wild boar forests.
“I don’t think they raise the questions that I want people to ask me, what is my relationship with the land? How much do I understand? What are the effects of wildfires… and how (how) can I live with him easily and happily? I don’t think it’s a question of just looking at the photos.
She did not condemn the subsequent photo exhibition or other project to “carbon”, which could turn west to BC, in fact, that land has also been destroyed by fire in recent years.
“The fun thing about fire is that it knows no boundaries,” she said.
Carbon appeared for the first time last autumn at the Grande Prairie Art Gallery as part of the Alberta Foundation’s Arts Tour Exhibition Program. It will now be shown on Habitat for the Arts until Saturday, July 17, before moving to the Grande cache.
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