Sarah Meenahan of Rainbow Camp

Peter Bohler, Swiss-American

Sarah Meenahan of Rainbow Camp, 2017

This photo is part of a series for the New York Times titled “Inmate Wildfire Fighters” in which Bohler showcases the female inmates tackling California’s wildfires. Inmate firefighters elect to do this work, and get to live in a much nicer facility, but are still only paid $2 to $5 an hour to put their health and frequently their life on the line, with as little as three weeks of training (compared to the three years that civilian firefighters receive). Plus, it is nearly impossible for released inmates to then get a related job since LA County fire does not hire felons. Bohler’s photo series highlights a sort of power and even majesty that these women hold, while additionally raising some interesting questions; for instance, director of the A.C.L.U. National Prison Project David Fathi, speaking to Times journalist Jamie Lowe posits, “if these people are safe to be out and about carrying axes and chainsaws, maybe they didn’t need to be in prison in the first place.” Inmates, who make up a significant portion of California’s firefighting force, are paying both financially and with their health for the effects of climate change in California. Label by Laura Reitze

The Red Tulips

Dustin Hall, American, born 1999

The Red Tulips, 2018

In this painting, Hall uses abstraction and color blocking to create an anthropomorphized landscape of queer figures. Painted on the back of a scavenged cardboard poster frame and hung with scrap wire, the painting contains two separate blocks of color, the upper block in yellow and the lower block in green. Within in each block, spirals of other colors swirl to create forms suggestive of penises, vaginas, breasts, and faces. Uniting and blurring the boundaries between the two blocks are three distinct, humanlike figures in white, black, and gray. The bodies which appear in the middle, with their combination of female and male primary and secondary sex characteristics, do not fit cisnormative understandings of biological femininity and masculinity. Just as the figures blur between the landscape and each other, so too do they blur between binary constructions of sex and gender. The abstraction of the lines in the lower half of the painting further enables this sexual and gender ambiguity. Phallic forms whirl into yonic forms which then whirl into breasts and faces and hands until each form is simultaneously recognizable and unrecognizable, disrupting biological binaries of sex and gender (as well as binaries separating humans and nature) to the point where such binaries become incomprehensible. The figure in the center of the painting grounds this chaos, signaling that an alternative to shaky models of binary gender resides in the transcendence of this binary in favor of a body that recognizes the fluidity of gender and sexual categories. Label by Maxwell Cloe

Toxic Pond

Shannon Elizabeth Bell, American

Toxic Pond, 2008

Shannon Elizabeth Bell provided women in communities in Southern West Virginia with digital cameras and requested that they tell the story of their communities. This project is titled “The Southern West Virginia Photovoice Project” and highlights the impact of mountaintop coal removal through photographs with written narratives. This photograph was taken by the activist Carolyn from a community where the surrounding mountains are covered with large mountaintop removal mining operations. Carolyn’s piece, “Toxic Pond?” displays and  narrates slow violence from hidden coal related pollution within the community. Carolyn’s narrative that is accompanied with the photo reveals the constant unease that permeates throughout the community regarding environmental justice in the form of coal-related environmental problems. Label by Elsa Rall

Buffalo Creek Memorial

Kevin Ledo, Canadian, born 1978

Buffalo Creek Memorial, 2014

Kevin Ledo’s mural acts as a memorial to honor the lives and properties lost in the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster. The flood, as depicted in the left side of the mural, destroyed many houses and properties and was a result of slurry formed by the waste and chemicals of the coal mining industry. The dark colors portray the filth of the contaminated water that flowed through the community, countering the idea presented by the coal industry that coal is a clean energy source. Ledo also depicted most of the sky as being dark, hinting at the air pollution generated by both mountaintop removal practices and the burning of coal. The woman in the foreground holding onto a child portrays how the coal industry, and ongoing disasters created by them, are negatively impacting generations of people in the Appalachian communities. Finally, the white dove in the top left corner is a symbol of peace, which I interpret as the painter’s call for justice towards the people who are suffering at the hands of the coal industry. Label by Lindsey Smith