Astra Speaker Series Fall 2014 / Winter 2015

Judy Natal 
Glimpses of Humanity: Judy Natal's Future Perfect and Beyond

Wednesday, September 10, 2014 at 5 p.m.
Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, 358 Gordon St., Guelph

Future Perfect entails a photographic sweep of three peculiarly evocative and troubling sites where human intervention and land use are exploring the quality and state of futurity. A Las Vegas desert preserve provides a vision for a sustainable future, Biosphere 2’s exploration of controlled ecosystems and space colonization in Oracle, Arizona, and the geothermal landscapes and steam portraits created in Iceland, are worlds apart from each other, but become perfect foils to imagine what the future might look like, illuminating the present moment and the environmental choices we have yet to make.

What happens to our humanity when the thin veneer of civilization is stripped away and I explore how art finds hope in both awareness, knowledge, and social engagement.  The question “what makes us human?” is a constant nagging question as I’ve imagined the future to illuminate the present and the environmental choices we are currently making.

Judy Natal is a Chicago-based artist, Professor of Photography and Coordinator of the Graduate Program at Columbia College, author of EarthWords, published in 2004 by Light Work, and Neon Boneyard Las Vegas A-Z, published in 2006 by Center for American Places. 

This event is free and open to the public.  Click here for event poster.