Widening the Lens Podcast Series

Landscape photographs contain a multitude of stories about natural spaces and the people connected to them. In the first episode of Widening the Lens, archaeologist Rachael Z. DeLue and historian Tyler Green critically examine dominant narratives about land, identity, and history generated by early landscape photography, and artist Sky Hopinka considers creating alternative archives that combine the personal with the poetic.

Featuring: Rachael Z. DeLue, Tyler Green, Sky Hopinka
Hosted by: Venus Williams

Photographic archives offer a powerful means to narrate history and produce knowledge, but how can they be used in a recuperative way to confront the past? Episode 2 brings together artist A.K. Burns and poet Natalie Diaz to reflect on lost landscapes and cultural erasure, while geologist Marcia Bjornerud invites listeners to view the earth itself as an archive of geologic and human history that can be read and understood as it evolves over time.

Featuring: Marcia Bjornerud, A.K. Burns, Natalie Diaz
Hosted by: Venus Williams

Since its inception, photography has helped perpetuate myths about the American landscape that obscure more complex experiences. To get a sense of how these myths influence our relationship to land today, science writer William L. Fox traces connections between mythmaking and human cognition throughout history, while artists Sam Contis, Mark Armijo McKnight, and Raven Chacon discuss how their work counters and breaks these myths by reframing the protagonists and narratives we typically see enacted in the landscape.

Featuring: William L. Fox, Mark Armijo McKnight, Sam Contis, Raven Chacon
Hosted by: Venus Williams

Episode 4 looks at how artists are thinking about the history of public land and the ways in which discriminatory policies have long defined who has access to natural spaces. Ornithologist and writer J. Drew Lanham explores this tension through his family history, while artist Xaviera Simmons, curator Candice Hopkins, and filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat convene to reconsider landscapes as sites that can forge solidarity amidst environmental and political concerns.

Featuring: Xaviera Simmons, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Candice Hopkins, Tyler Green, J. Drew Lanham
Hosted by: Venus Williams

Photography can be a tool to visualize bodily attachments to land. In Episode 5, artist David O. Alekhuogie and geologist Kathryn Yusoff engage in a powerful dialogue about how various conditions that define the contemporary landscape are reflected in the human body, shaping how we physically move through and experience our environment. Saretta Morgan expands on this idea through a newly commissioned poem that considers even deeper connections between body and place in which geology, history, and photography interact.

Featuring: David O. Alekhuogie, Kathryn Yusoff, Saretta Morgan
Hosted by: Venus Williams

How can photography help people better understand their environment amidst an era of rapid development and climate change? In the final episode of Widening the Lens, artists Edra Soto, Victoria Sambunaris, and Dionne Lee discuss how photography helps them bear witness to the constantly changing American landscape, and the ways in which art can help us move forward at this critical juncture.

Featuring: Victoria Sambunaris, Edra Soto, Dionne Lee
Hosted by: Venus Williams