PROVIDENCE, RI.- The RISD Museum will host a collection of nearly 50 photographs that explore and celebrate the work of The Nature Conservancy. The photographs, which have earned acclaim from art critics and nature lovers alike, feature the Last Great Places, ecologically important areas the Conservancy is helping to protect.



The collection features the work of twelve leading photographers, who each visited one of the places and recorded their response to that place on film. The resulting range of styles, from landscape photography to portraiture and photojournalism, illustrate the rich and complex splendor of these places, as well as the diversity of artists represented. The featured artists include those who are famous for their landscape photographs — such as Terry Evans and Richard Misrach — those who have achieved wide followings for their portraiture — such as Annie Leibovitz and William Wegman — and those who are best known for their work on the cutting edge of the art world — such as Sally Mann and Lee Friedlander.



“By asking contemporary artists to visit and respond to what The Nature Conservancy calls the Last Great Places, I wanted to investigate new ways of thinking about how the camera could depict our relationships to the land, to beauty and to nature in general,” said exhibition curator Andy Grundberg. The artists chose sites ranging in character from the red rock plateaus of Utah and the forests of New York to the coral reefs of Indonesia. Some focused on plant and animal life, while others focused on the people who live in and around these areas. Some made one trip, while others chose to revisit the selected site over several seasons. Yet, all of the participants produced images that express passionate feelings about the natural world.



William Christenberry and Lee Friedlander, for example, focused on the landscape. At Alabama’s Bibb County Glades and Cahaba River, Christenberry found himself photographing the first pure landscapes of his career. Friedlander’s work along the San Pedro River in Arizona explores the diversity of plants growing in the vicinity of the river. Christenberry and Friedlander’s interpretations unveil the hidden beauty of these biologically important places, and demonstrate the importance of The Nature Conservancy’s goal of preserving ecologically functioning landscapes.



Mary Ellen Mark and Fazal Sheikh, on the other hand, concentrated on portraiture. Mark’s images from two isolated coastal settlements on opposite ends of the United States, and Sheikh’s portraits of the faces and hands of landless people living in and near a national park in Brazil, are reminders of the human face of conservation. In so doing, the photographs suggest that the beauty of nature and the reality of human presence are not necessarily antithetical, and therein reflect the Conservancy’s collaborative and participatory approach to conservation.



The photographs from In Response to Place will remain on view at The RISD Museum until Sunday, April 21 and then will continue on a tour to venues across the United States, and to sites in Latin America and Asia.