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Cycle 4: Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape

2024–2025

What kinds of human stories can landscape photographs tell?

Photography has dramatically altered our access to, understanding of, and impact on the natural world. Through programming that includes the exhibition Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape, a podcast series, and publication, Widening the Lens examines inherited narratives about people and ecology to offer audiences multiple points of entry into landscape photography.

Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape is organized by Dan Leers, curator of photography, with Keenan Saiz, Hillman Photography Initiative project curatorial assistant.

Victoria Sambunaris, Untitled (Dune buggy), All American Canal, CA, 2021; © Victoria Sambunaris. Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York

Exhibition

May 11, 2024–Jan. 12, 2025
Heinz Galleries

Featuring nearly 100 works by 19 different artists with multiple museum premieres, Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape invites you to reconsider your relationship to the environment and understand how photography helps envision alternative paths forward.

  • A.K. Burns
  • Chanell Stone
  • Cyprien Gaillard
  • David O. Alekhuogie
  • David Hartt
  • Dionne Lee
  • Edra Soto
  • Erin Jane Nelson
  • Fazal Sheikh
  • Justine Kurland
  • Lucy Raven
  • Mark Armijo McKnight
  • Melissa Catanese
  • Raven Chacon
  • Sam Contis
  • Sky Hopinka
  • Tomás Saraceno
  • Victoria Sambunaris
  • Xaviera Simmons

Learn More →

Justine Kurland, Broadway (Joy), 2001; © Justine Kurland. Courtesy of the artist

Podcast Series View All →

photos side by side of abstract art
Watch this trailer to learn more about our podcast, Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape, with host Venus Williams.

Expanding beyond our gallery walls, Widening the Lens is also a six-episode podcast series. Hosted by tennis champion, entrepreneur, and arts advocate Venus Williams, each of the six episodes spotlights different facets of the relationship between photography and the environment.

The podcast features artists, writers, poets, philosophers, and environmentalists in dialogue alongside archival audio, historical anecdotes, sonic experiences, and curatorial interviews.

Listen Now →

Contributors Include

  • A.K. Burns
  • Candice Hopkins
  • David O. Alekhuogie
  • Dionne Lee
  • Edra Soto
  • J. Drew Lanham
  • Julian Brave NoiseCat
  • Kathryn Yusoff
  • Marcia Bjornerud
  • Mark Armijo McKnight
  • Natalie Diaz
  • Rachael Z. DeLue
  • Raven Chacon
  • Sam Contis
  • Saretta Morgan
  • Sky Hopinka
  • Tyler Green
  • Victoria Sambunaris
  • William L. Fox
  • Xaviera Simmons

Episodes

Events and Programs

Sun., Sept. 8, 10:45 a.m.

Publication

Edited by Dan Leers, Curator of Photography
Foreword by Eric Crosby, Henry J. Heinz II Director

How has humanity’s relationship with the land been documented by, and altered through, photography?  These are the driving questions of Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape, a book inspired by a generation of contemporary artists who have endeavored to chart the past, present, and potential futures of photography and the landscape.

With an essay by renowned curator, writer, and activist Lucy R. Lippard; a new commission from poet Saretta Morgan; and an epilogue by award-winning environmental and science journalist Michelle Nijhuis.

Purchase →

Widening the Lens Publication

Reading List View All →

Our team has put together an expanded reading for the project. Available online and in our store, these titles expand upon the themes of the show.

About the Hillman Photography Initiative

Since its start in 2013, the Hillman Photography Initiative has showcased dynamic new artworks, exhibitions, publications, online experiences, and conversations transforming our relationship to the photographic medium. The Initiative connects Carnegie Museum of Art with diverse audiences to exchange new ideas about photography.

Support

Major support for the exhibition is provided by the William Talbott Hillman Foundation and the Henry L. Hillman Foundation. Significant support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Henry Luce Foundation. Generous support is provided by Teiger Foundation. Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Carnegie Museum of Art’s exhibition program is supported by the Carnegie Museum of Art Exhibition Fund and The Fellows of Carnegie Museum of Art.

Carnegie Museum of Art is supported by The Heinz Endowments and Allegheny Regional Asset District. Carnegie Museum of Art receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Andy Warhol Foundation Teiger Foundation logo Henry Luce Foundation National Endowment for the Arts
a computer generated image of a person on their knees.
Cycle 3: Mirror with a Memory
a virtual landscape that was made in the video game second life
Cycle 2: Lightime