Artist Talk Presented by: Dana Fritz

This event takes place at the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel, 163 E. Walton Pl. Chicago, IL 60611

Join photographer Dana Fritz for a talk about her project Terraria Gigantica, a series of photographs made in the world’s largest enclosed landscapes. In these vivaria, plants are grown amid carefully constructed representations of the natural world to entertain and educate tourists and support scientific research and conservation. These architectural and engineering marvels stand as working symbols of our complex relationship with the environment. Giant terraria require human control of all conditions to create ecosystems that would otherwise be impossible in a particular location. While technical demands inform the design of these spaces, the juxtapositions of natural and artificial elements generate striking visual paradoxes that can go unnoticed. Here Fritz turns away from visitors’ prepared sight lines, revealing alternate views that dispel the illusion of natural conditions. Inviting questions about what it means to create and contain landscapes, the photographs in Terraria Gigantica inspire contemplation of our ecological future.

After the talk, Fritz will be signing copies of her book, Terraria Gigantica: The World under Glass.  Books will be available for sale.

Dana Fritz is a Professor in the School of Art, Art History & Design at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where her work in photography examines how humans shape and represent the land. Her honors include an Arizona Commission on the Arts Fellowship, a Rotary Foundation Group Study Exchange to Japan, the Society for Photographic Education Imagemaker Award and Juror’s Awards in national exhibitions. Fritz’s work has been exhibited widely in the U.S. including at the Phoenix Art Museum, Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, the Griffin Museum of Photography, and the Sheldon Museum of Art. International venues include Château de Villandry in France, Xi’an Jiaotong University Art Museum in China, and Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Place M, and Nihonbashi Institute of Contemporary Arts in Japan. Her work is held in several collections including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; New Mexico State University, Las Cruces; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona; The Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art; andBibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Fritz has been awarded artist residencies at locations known for their significant cultural histories and gardens or unique landscapes: Villa Montalvo in Saratoga, California; Château de Rochefort-en-Terre in Brittany, France; Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona; PLAYA in Summer Lake, Oregon; and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts in Saratoga, Wyoming. University of New Mexico Press published her monograph, Terraria Gigantica: The World under Glass, in 2017.

Image: Corner Outlet, Lied Jungle