Tue 10/18 @ 6:30PM
Photographer Steve Cagan has become well-known in northeast Ohio for using his work for social and cultural activism, especially relating to Latin America. 1967 Laurel School graduate Mary Kelsey is an artist whose specialty is drawing.
The two have joined their strengths for a project called The Price of Gold: Mechanized Gold Mining vs. Rainforest Cultures in El Choco, Colombia, which opens at the Laurel School tonight.
It focuses on raising awareness about how mechanized mining is replacing artisanal panning for gold and its impact on the economy, culture, health and social structures of the local people and its threat to the environment of El Choco’s rain forest with is incredible diversity.
“The El Chocó Mining project documents the work and lives of grassroots miners through photography and drawing,” they write. “We work in solidarity and active collaboration with affected communities to lend assistance to those confronting these changes and to publicize the threats and dangers they face.”
The two artists use photography, line drawing and texts to create a bond between the viewer and the subjects. This isn’t a jet-in/jet-out project for them; Cagan has been working and photographing in El Choco since 2003. And Kelsey has long used her work to explore the relationships between people and their environments, including in rain forests.
The show opens with a free public reception Tue 10/18 @ 6:30pm. The artists will give an illustrated talk about the project at the reception.
