Climate Concerns/CENTER Panel Discussion

About the Artists

David Walter Banks: Practice Resurrection

Food is one of the core solutions in the battle against climate change and pollution, the protection of global wildlife, and creation of a more equitable society. Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. Food production and distribution is responsible for over a quarter of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions, and is the leading cause of deforestation and associated biodiversity loss.

Industrial farming practices damage soil progressively, pollute our environment, and lead to the extinction of plant and animal species. Agriculture and aquaculture are a threat for 24,000 of the 28,000 species currently threatened with extinction. As the global population continues to rise, so do our demands for food and water. The current system is unsustainable, and ineffective in a world where as many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021 – 46 million people more than a year earlier and 150 million more than 2019.

We stand at a crux in history in which we have the chance to heed science and forge a different path. We have the opportunity to overhaul a system that has the same amount of constructive potential as it does destructive. Our system has failed us, but there is another way. One of resurrection. Resurrection of our soil and the biodiversity of our lands. Resurrection of our communities, our connection to the land, and our physical well-being. A way that nourishes our bodies while saving our earth, and leaves no one behind. This project is a celebration of those who share that vision and dare to act on it.

www.davidwalterbanks.com

Esha Chiocchio, winner of CENTER’s 2022 Environmental Award, is a photographer and filmmaker who uses her combined knowledge of visual storytelling and sustainable communities to inspire social change. As an optimistic realist, she focuses on solutions to social and environmental challenges. Her current project, Good Earth, celebrates agrarians from diverse sectors who are revitalizing land through regenerative practices. She has photographed around the world for publications, non-profits, and commercial clients, including National Geographic, High Country News, Jardins du Monde, and Bonefish Grill. Esha teaches photography to high school students on four continents with the Fredric Roberts Photography Workshops and to adults through the Santa Fe Workshops. She has BAs in Anthropology and French from the University of Colorado, an MA in Sustainable Communities from Goddard College, and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa.

>> Click here to watch the Good Earth project video.

www.eshaphoto.com

Leah Dyjak, winner of CENTER’s 2021 ME&EVE Grant, received their BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2006 and their MFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2015. In 2021, As We Play God, Dyjak’s most recent body of work received the prestigious Howard Foundation Grant through Brown University in 2022. Dyjak’s work has been exhibited nationwide at places such as the Houston Center of Photography, Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, and The Front Gallery in New Orleans. Their work is in multiple private collections and has been acquired by the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University. They are a past recipient of a Goldfarb Fellowship at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program in Woodside, California. They have been in residence at the Anderson Ranch in Colorado and most recently at the NARS Foundation in New York City. Recent publications include the Architectural Review, London, and the Leonardo Journal of Art and Science, MIT Press. Currently, they hold the position of Assistant Professor of Visual Art at Wheaton College MA and lives in Providence Rhode Island. The Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown Massachusetts represents their work. 

https://www.leahdyjak.com/

Ella Morton, winner of CENTER’s 2021 Environmental Award, is a Canadian visual artist and filmmaker living in Tkarón:to/Toronto, on the land of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenoshaunee and the Wendat peoples. Her expedition-based practice has brought her to residencies and projects across Canada, Scandinavia, and Antarctica. Working primarily with lens-based media, she uses experimental analogue processes to capture the sublime and fragile qualities of remote landscapes. Reflecting on how the medium of photography is changing in the digital age, she aims to uncover how photographs can show more than a straightforward depiction of reality, and how the alchemy of analogue techniques can be reinvented in the present day to tell deeper stories within images.

Morton earned a BFA from Parsons School of Design (New York) in 2008 and an MFA from York University (Toronto) in 2015. She has exhibited her work internationally, including shows at Lonsdale Gallery (Toronto), Foley Gallery (New York), the Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins), Contemporary Calgary (Calgary), Galérie AVE (Montréal), Viewpoint Gallery (Halifax), Photographic Center Northwest (Seacle), the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art (Kelowna) and Hanstholm Art Space (Denmark). 

Her work has been featured in Contact Photography Festival (Toronto), Exposure Photography Festival (Calgary), the Antimatter Media Art Festival (Victoria) and the Arctic Film Festival (Norway), among others. Her work has been published in the NPR Picture Show, Analog Forever Magazine, Lenscratch, Lomography Magazine, Becer Photography Magazine, the Toronto Star and the British Journal of Photography. Her practice has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the National Film Board of Canada.