Nelson Hancock Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of color photographs by Raul Gutierrez from his series Travels without Maps.
Over the course of fifteen years Gutierrez has been making pilgrimages to the deserts and mountains of China’s Western borders focusing on Tibetan and Uyghur communities. These remote frontier regions are laced with contested geographies, with religious and cultural legacies confronting powerful economic and political transformations. The subjects, whether they are students in a Tibetan nomad school, a young couple posing in a rural photo studio, or a Muslim goatherd on the road, offer intimate views of individual lives as well as poetic symbols of broader cultural transition.
Gutierrez says of this work, "In these dusty forgotten places I found way stations between cultures where one can see the past and future simultaneously. One year a road is made of dirt. A year later it is gravel. Three years later it is a four lane highway. Ancient cities are razed and rebuilt with breathtaking disregard for history. Land which was open for nomads is fenced an mined. Seeing these changes over such a short time is a perspective that is at once disorienting and tragic. I try to make images that show these things or at least some of the emotional truths behind them, because I know that by the time I return everything will be almost unrecognizable."
Installation Images:
September 14 - November 28, 2006
Reception for the Artist:
Thursday, September 14, 2006
6-8pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, noon-6pm and by appointment