The University of San Francisco’s Thacher Gallery Presents ‘Elemental Exposures’
The exhibition will run from November 30, 2021 to February 20, 2022
SAN FRANCISCO (November 1, 2021) – The Thacher Gallery at the University of San Francisco (USF) is featuring a new exhibition debuting November 30 titled Elemental Exposures. On view through February 20, 2022, the exhibition features four contemporary landscape photographers using alternative processes to expand the way we see the American landscape. The exhibit is presented by USF’s Master of Arts in Museum Studies Curatorial Practicum class, led by Associate Professor Karen Fraser.
The works on display focus on what perspectives and histories have been erased from the American landscape. Artists featured include Kristiana Chan, Binh Danh, Bessma Khalaf, and Dionne Lee, who help expand the canon of American landscape imagery by bringing diverse technical and conceptual approaches to envision the subject. Techniques utilized include historic photographic processes including daguerreotypes and cyanotypes, as well as contemporary processes such as collage and the burned image.
About the artists
Kristiana Chan is a first-generation Malaysian-Chinese artist who incorporates environmental and elemental properties (such as ocean water) into her processes. Binh Danh’s series of daguerreotypes documents the United States National Park system, inviting viewers to reflect on their relationship to these sites. Dionne Lee works in photography, collage, and video to explore power, survival, and personal history in relation to the American landscape. Bessma Khalaf is an interdisciplinary artist employing processes of degradation, such as burning, into her photography.
The Thacher Gallery will host an online opening celebration – ‘Alternative Ways of Looking’ – with the artists and curatorial team on Wednesday, December 1 from 5:00-6:15 p.m. Additional events will take place throughout the exhibition as well. For event info, visit https://www.usfca.edu/thacher-gallery.
About Thacher Gallery
The Thacher Gallery is a public art gallery located in the University of San Francisco’s Gleeson Library where creativity, scholarship, and community converge. The exhibitions in the 2021-22 season will examine ecology and environmental justice. The gallery is free and open to the public from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. daily. Closed for the holidays from December 24 – January 2. USF pandemic protocols are in effect.
About the University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco is a private, Jesuit Catholic university that reflects the diversity, optimism, and opportunities of the city that surrounds it. USF offers more than 230 undergraduate, graduate, professional, and certificate programs in the arts and sciences, business, law, education, and nursing and health professions. At USF, each course is an intimate learning community in which top professors encourage students to turn learning into positive action, so the students graduate equipped to do well in the world — and inspired to change it for the better. For more information, visit usfca.edu.