The Enveloping Landscape: A Contemplative Photographic Journey is a visual celebration of the transformative power of place-based education. In this first-ever collaboration between the Arboretum’s Exhibits and Adult Education programs, images from award-winning documentary photographer Susan Patrice join those of 22 student photographers in a breathtaking exhibit that explores the ways that we are indelibly shaped by place. Through their images, these photographers reveal not only the rich biodiversity of Southern Appalachia, but a renewed sense of kinship with their local landscapes found through photography.
What began as a documentary photography project launched by Patrice in 2016 became a collaborative Arboretum workshop led by the artist in early 2020. The project invited photographers of all levels to return each season to focus their gaze on what called to them in the landscape — deepening a contemplative practice of seeing, knowing and caring for a place. When everything abruptly changed in March of last year, this photographic community wasted no time in moving online. What seemed like an unnatural distance imposed by technology became a path into both familiar and uncharted places. This exhibition chronicles these photographers’ year-long journey, inviting viewers to step into an intimate world where the landscape is alive, waiting to be met, understood and entered.
The Enveloping Landscape: A Contemplative Photographic Journey is on display daily January 16 – May 2, 2021, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., inside the Baker Exhibit Center. Face coverings are required for visitors ages 5 years and older.
Exhibit support for The Enveloping Landscape: A Contemplative Photographic Journey is provided in part by The North Carolina Arboretum Society; Asheville Citizen-Times; RomanticAsheville.com Travel Guide; Smoky Mountain Living Magazine; The Laurel of Asheville; and Henco North Creative Imaging.
Image: Susan Patrice, Enveloping Landscape #1, archival pigment print, 45 x 45 inches, © Susan Patrice