SARASOTA, FLA.- On Feb 10, Territories: Photography, Space, and Power opens at The Ringling, exploring the myriad ways in which spaces are claimed through cultural forces and political power. Visitors will be able to study not only the ways in which the camera can reveal how humans construct and encode the space they inhabit but also how the camera itself organizes space and place, thereby creating its own territory.

Several large format works from The Ringling’s collection, rarely on display, are included in the exhibition. Among these are immense light boxes from Lewis Baltz. Baltz’s images examine how industrial landscapes shaped a new topography of life in the late 20th century. While Thomas Struth’s grand photographic print of the National Gallery in London causes us to reflect on the power of museum exhibition spaces.

“While the works included in Territories may at first seem eclectic, they all evidence the ways in which photographers have revealed, through framing and perspective, political and cultural power embedded in the physical environment. Often we pass through the world we inhabit without reflecting on the underlying human forces and structures of power that shape the spaces we occupy. The exhibition provides an opportunity to look more closely at the spaces we encounter,” said The Ringling Museum’s Associate Curator of Photography, Christopher Jones.

The work included in Territories spans back to the mid-19th century. A vintage photograph of the pyramids at Giza by Francis Frith, one of the earliest views of the ancient monuments, captures a view of the enduring power of the pharaohs for his European audience. Meanwhile, contemporary aerial photographs by Marilyn Bridges show how human culture has cultivated and organized the surface of the planet for its own needs.

The exhibition is organized by The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.