Remnants of the Rice Culture-Agricultural History As Art
July 18 – August 30, 2015
Opening reception Friday, July 17 from 6-8 pm
Artist’s talk: Saturday, August 15th at 2pm
The City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs presents Remnants of the Rice Culture – Agricultural History As Art at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park July 18 through August 30, 2015, featuring photography by David Shriver Soliday. The exhibition, curated by Mark Long, will open with a reception on Friday, July 17 from 6 to 8 p.m. In addition, the public is invited to attend an artist’s talk by Soliday on Saturday, August 15 at 2 p.m.
Both events are free and open to the public.
Remnants of the Rice Culture – Agricultural History As Art, an exhibition of photographs by David Shriver Soliday, showcases the genesis and genealogy of the coastal rice production complex once known as the Rice Empire. This collection documents man’s 300-year-old record upon the landscape and explores the intersection between agricultural history and art. Soliday’s aerial perspective distinguishes the subtle fading imprints of rice production and frames the monumental scale of the precisely constructed fields, dikes and canals in ways otherwise difficult to apprehend. Highlighting the role of African-American labor and expertise in transforming the native swamplands into a highly engineered hydraulic machine, the artist’s compelling images, presented on infused aluminum sheet metal, prompt varied dialogues about the physical landscape, human capability and intervention, and the rice industry’s enduring environmental and social impact.
Remnants of the Rice Culture introduces new photography technology to the City Gallery at Waterfront Park – that of imaging on metal. Photographic images are infused into aluminum sheet metal at very high temperature and pressure. Soliday believes these prints raise the bar for museum quality presentations.
Curator Mark Long observes, “Soliday’s sustained charting of vestiges of rice production along hundreds of miles of the Eastern Seaboard over several decades has resulted in a comprehensive archive that attests to one of the great anthropogenic landscape complexes in world history.”
City Gallery at Waterfront Park
34 Prioleau Street, Unit A, Charleston , SC 29401
Gallery hours during exhibition dates:
Monday, closed; Tuesday – Friday, 10am – 6pm; Saturday & Sunday 12 – 5pm.
For more information:
(843) 958-6484
citygallery@charleston-sc.gov
CityGalleryatWaterfrontPark.com
