Exhibit: 'The Last Wilderness: Photographs of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge' by Subhankar Banerjee at Gerald Peters Gallery, New York — through 15 Oct. 2004; at Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, from 15 July 2005 through 27 Aug. 2005
NEW YORK (Fotophile.com) — It's rare that something so straightforward and beautiful resonantes with such political and vaguely unsettling overtones, but Subhankar Banerjee's photographs of the contentious Artctic National Wildlife Refuge manages to do all of that.
Otherworldly vistas of vast swaths of rivers, tundra, mountains and alpine meadows appear unspoiled by any evidence of humanity in 30 large UltraChrome prints.
An occasional dotted line of caribou transverses the seemingly endless lands that Interior Secretary Gale Norton disingenously described as "an area of flat nothingness" in protecting a Bush administration plan to open up ANWR for exploratory oil drilling.
On their surface, the visions of nature on display at Gerald Peters Gallery in New York appear deceptively simple. Well-composed and subtly lighted landscapes show a sensitivity to the subject matter, the Brooks Mountain Range and its year-round inhabitants.
But beyond the obvious beauty lies the idea of mountain streams, of fresh air, of open spaces — the concept of our "sea to shining sea" at the very core of our country's existence — and this is how the most innocuous of places becomes political: This is one of our diminishing national heirlooms, a much-needed sanctuary for our collective psyche as Americans.
Banerjee didn't set out to make a such a statement, even having declined to comment for a 2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer story about a Smithsonian Institution exhibit of his photographs. Yet Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., used Banerjee's photographs during a debate on the Senate floor, prompting lawmakers to stay the developers.
For now.
The self-taught photographer, born near Calcutta, India, in 1967, was trained as a scientist and worked in related fields for six years before turning to photography full-time in 2000. He created this collection of images during a two-year, 4,000-mile journey he took across the 19.5 million-acre Arctic refuge with a native Inupiat guide.
Banerjee's understanding of the terrain and climate is evident in his depiction of the equisite light. Water and sky glow with an almost-extraterrestial glow, lichen comes to life in a multitude of hues and migrating caribou provide an overwhelming sense of scale that would dwarf even the tallest Gothamite skyscrapers.
Once the most abundant resource at the outset of this nation, land has become more mythologized in its increasing scarcity. With his breathtaking and captivating photographs, Banerjee makes real and vibrant one of the last few places on Earth that remains undeniably a proud piece of our national heritage. [2004.10] | TOP
