Friday, Jan. 23, Haverford’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery celebrated the opening of its latest show, Zoe Strauss: Sea Change, in which the titular Philadelphia photographer explores the extended aftermath of three ecological disasters: Hurricane Katrina, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and Hurricane Sandy.
Strauss was on hand for a standing-room-only gallery talk before the show’s opening alongside writer Mattathias Schwartz and Haverford Assistant Professor of Chemistry Helen K. White, both of whom contributed essays to the exhibit catalog. More than 400 people were in attendance.
In the 52 exhibited photographs, vinyl prints, and projected images Strauss has captured lush and leveled landscapes, graffiti pleas and words of encouragement, and water as both the destroyer and destroyed. The show tells the stories of lives decimated and dusting off from disasters both natural and man-made, the fast and slow tragedies of global warming, the damage we can repair, and the damage we can’t.
Catch Sea Change at the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery through March 6.
Photos by Lisa Boughter.