An exhibit of note(s)

In 2015, photographer Ian van Coller was invited to accompany a team of geoscientists specializing in climate science to the Quelccaya Glacier in Peru. He was astonished at the endurance of these people, who daily climbed to the summit of the 18,600-foot glacier and then worked for more than 10 hours a day, drilling ice cores, digging snow pits and collecting data.

Following that expedition Van Coller, long fascinated by the annotated drawings and paintings of Victorian-era naturalists, botanists and ornithologists, began to collaborate with scientists by having them add notes and research elements directly on to his photographic prints, re-inventing a genre of naturalist imagery.

Learn more about Van Coller’s work at a virtual artist talk hosted by the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on Tuesday, May 17, as he discusses his award-winning project “Naturalists of the Long Now,” that includes his collaborations with paleoclimatologists. He will also share about his books related to climate change and deep time.

Born and raised in South Africa, Van Coller moved to the US in 1992, where he received a BFA from Arizona State University and a MFA from the University of New Mexico. He has been a professor of photography at Montana State University since 2006. His work has been widely exhibited in the US and internationally, and is included in more than 50 public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Getty Research Institute. He is a 2018 John Simon Guggenheim fellow and a fellow of the Explorers Club. He currently lives in Bozeman with his wife, two children and two dogs.

The talk will begin at 4 pm live via Zoom. For more information, go to sitkacenter.org or call 541-996-6614.