Requiem: The Remains of the Day, August 4, 2021
Requiem: The Remains of the Day, August 4, 2021
Exhibition: April 5 – June 3, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 15, 12pm-2pm | More info…
Artist Talk: Ruth Morgan: Saturday, May 27, 12pm-1:30pm | More info…
Closing Reception: Saturday, June 3, 2pm-4pm | More info…
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
In this exhibition, photographer Ruth Morgan presents evocative photographs that document the devastation of Greenville, CA after it was burned down by the Dixie Wildfire in 2021. This selection of photographs opens up a conversation about the consequential impact of man-made climate change in our local communities.
On August 4, 2021 at approximately 7:30 PM the Dixie Fire had already ravaged the ancient Sierra forest landscape and would soon crest the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range and roar through the small town of Greenville, CA. In less than 45 minutes it destroyed wooden buildings that had stood for over a century. A gas station, church, hotel, a museum and bar were among the structures gutted, along with nearly 100 family homes, schools and commercial businesses. The homes and property of approximately 1000 residents were reduced to rubble, fortunately all the residents were evacuated.
Officially caused by a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. equipment failure, the fire was fueled and exacerbated by man-made climate change along with overgrown forests caused by decades of fire suppression and population growth at the edges of forests that would intensify the flames to cause the near obliteration of the town.
The exhibition and portfolios are a requiem to Greenville and a warning for us all to meet the challenge of climate change and ensuing global warming.
About the Artist: Ruth Morgan founded Community Works West in 1997, an organization that combined her interest in working directly with people and communities impacted by incarceration and her commitment to social justice. At the same time, she has had a separate career as a photographer. She has always used her art for social change and to give voice to marginalized communities. She created S.F. County Jail in the 1980’s and after that a seminal body of photos, San Quentin: Maximum Security. The latter, life size photos, traveled to museums and galleries across the country and were useful in winning a case against the prison conditions. From that work to Harlem Photos, to the Welcome Home Project 2014, funded in part by the California Humanities with writer Micky Duxbury, to her latest work, Ohlone Elders and Youth Speak and Piqua Shawnee: Cultural Survival in Their Homeland, she has exhibited across the country. Retired from Community Works she has just completed What Remains; August 4, 2021 Greenville CA. Her work is in private collections and museums that include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Houston and San Diego Museums and the Matrix Gallery in University Art Museum Berkeley. She has received awards from several institutions, including Creative Work Fund, the California Arts Council, and the San Francisco Arts Commission and The National Endowment for the Arts. Recently her S.F. Jail archive was purchased by the San Francisco Public Library and her Ohlone Elders and Youth archive was purchased by the Bancroft Library.
Exhibition review: “Through the Fire” by Lou Fancher for the East Bay Express
