Yosemite People

Description

For the first time, a photographer is entering Yosemite as the WPA documentary photographers of the 1930s might, with a shifted priority on people rather than on nature.

Carol McCusker, Curator of Photography, The Harn Museum of Art

At Yosemite National Park, more than five million annual visitors are supported by thousands of local rangers, workers, and volunteers. Through Yosemite People, a new traveling exhibit, the complex and nuanced relationships between people and Yosemite’s natural wonders come to life. Photographs from award-winning artist Jonas Kulikauskas – who brings his street photography sensibilities to the wilderness – reveal crowds clamoring to take the perfect selfie with Half Dome in the background and families cooling off in Tenaya Creek, while servers prep for diners at the Ahwahnee Hotel and rangers patrol the expansive Park. Traditions and history, too, are preserved through these images; Kulikauskas captures master basket weaver Julia Parker before her retirement, as well as Yosemite Valley Stables (where horseback riding tours are no longer allowed). Augmenting these images are text panels with oral histories from visitors to and workers in Yosemite, as well as historic images from Eadweard Muybridge, Ansel Adams, and Carleton Watkins to provide context for photography of the Park.

All together, the exhibit illustrates the ways in which people interact with natural resources and wilderness – even one as “pristine” as Yosemite National Park. Through this exhibit, your visitors will contemplate two essential questions: How can five million annual visitors experience Yosemite – and, by extension, our natural world – without harming it? How do our experiences with nature impact the way we understand ourselves?

Jonas Kulikauskas is an award-winning artist, photographer, and author, who has exhibited nationally and internationally, including a solo museum show at the National Čiurlionis Gallery of Art, Lithuania, in 2012. Since 2002, Kulikauskas has been a faculty member at ArtCenter College of Design, where he received the Samsung Faculty Enrichment Grant for Yosemite People. Learn more about the project here, and read a review of the book here.

This exhibit is also available as an online exhibit! Book the online exhibit as a stand-alone experience, or pair it with the physical exhibit when you host. Visit our online exhibits page to learn more.

Yosemite People is a traveling exhibition from Exhibit Envoy and photographer Jonas Kulikauskas.