Regina writer Sarah Ferguson just brought this show to my attention:

The Morse Museum (2 hrs west of Regina) is currently (until Sept. 30) hosting an exhibit by photographer Collin Stumpf. (more details here, if you’re on facebook)

Sarah’s description of the exhibit was so irresistibly relevant that I had to share. Here’s what she had to say:

“Collin’s work is actually an elegant form of protest… Steady school closures, (including a recent one in Morse) and the destruction of a number of well known prairie grain elevators, are sad reminders of a dying history in this province. Towns like the one Stumpf was raised in are evaporating because they are not necessary to modern progress. They become grave markers dotting the prairie landscape…

Initially, in observing the installation, which focuses on the rust, decay and mortality of society, one might feel that there is an element of defeat in these images, a sense of loss, hopelessness or perhaps futility in the manner in which the earth and its cycles overtake human society and turn the new into the old. Earth, ash and dust appear to overtake much of the subject matter in the photos. Yet, off to the side, I notice a pervading sense of light, filtering through and around most of the subject matter. Then I step back to examine the exhibit in its entirety, and finally, I realize, I am witnessing the rebirth of a small town’s voice. Stumpf has transformed his hometown into holy ground. He has made it sacred through the devotional act of noticing. All at once, I realize that perhaps the solution to preserving Saskatchewan’s history is not to deny or abandon the ghosts of its past, but to retrain the eye to appreciate what is around it.”

Could make for a good daytrip for anyone in southern Sask looking for some artistic accompaniment for your next issue of the squatch