Aerial Farm Photography

Additional Information

Each of us has peered out an aiRegina Public Libraryane window to appreciate the precision and complexity of the landscape below, whether it is the geometrical pattern determined by the survey system, or the astonishing lyric of unbroken territory. Aerial Farm Photography investigates this fascination as it applies to the prosaic question of how we know, or think we know, the land. It is an inquiry that moves from historical pop culture photography, to contemporary art, to the scientific applications of aerial photography. Nearly every rural home features at least one aerial photograph of the farmstead, and frequently multiple images, representing a complex bundle of fact and emotion that defines the home place. The centrepiece of the exhibition are the aerial farm photographs by H.D. Howdy McPhail, who documented west central Saskatchewan from his North Battleford Aviation business from 1952-54. McPhail's images reveal a sensibility finely tuned to the social and geographic features of this agricultural region. The exhibition also contains geomantic verticals selected by archivist and curator Brock Silversides. Michael Miranda, Shelley Sopher and Joe Fafard have each contributed works to the exhibition. Aerial Farm Photography is intended to inspire new readings of aerial photography, as historical document, as art and as narrative.