Widening the Lens will offer a look at ecological trauma through the lens of photography. Organized around themes of colonization, preservation, and resource extraction, the exhibition will feature approximately 90 works, including new site-specific commissions by a range of world-class artists.




Lucy Raven, Demolition of a Wall (Album 2), 2022. Color video, quadrophonic sound, bleacher seating, natural light. Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery.


Victoria Sambunaris, Untitled (jump), Glamis, CA, 2020. Chromogenic print. Courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery.

Since its invention, photography has dramatically altered access to and understanding of the natural world. Employing the breadth of lens-based media, participating artists will document the indelible effects of climate change, colonialism, industrialization, racism, war, and other human interventions with an awareness of photography’s complex historical relationship with the American landscape. Throughout Widening the Lens, the Carnegie Museum of Art will collaborate with its sister institution the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, known for its public and scholarly engagement with the Anthropocene, as well as local environmental advocacy groups, on public events and other programming. A section of the full-color catalog will pay tribute to Rachel Carson, the marine biologist and conservationist born near Pittsburgh whose seminal work Silent Spring advanced worldwide awareness of the dangers of environmental pollution. 


Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians), I'm tired of being temporary, I'm tired of an eventually, I heard you singing last night on the bank up the mountain on the cliff facing west. The oldest of us is in the east and they're tired too., 2021. Inkjet print with hand-scratched text and UV laminate. Courtesy the artist and Broadway Gallery.

Dan Leers is Curator of Photography at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Previously, he was the Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellow in the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Since arriving at Carnegie in 2015, Leers has organized numerous exhibitions and publications including Forum 80: Deana Lawson (2018); An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain (2020); Trevor Paglen: Opposing Geometries (2021); Forum 85: Sara Greenberger Rafferty (2022); and Gordon Parks in Pittsburgh 1944/1946 (2022). His book, Mirror with a Memory: Photography, Surveillance, and Artificial Intelligence won the 2022 award for Best Publication from the Association of Art Museum Curators. He graduated with a BA in Art History from Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, and an MA in Modern Art/Curatorial Studies from Columbia University, New York.

Diya Vij, Creative Time