Author: Sawyer, SeanPublished alongside an exhibition curated by David Hartt, this book presents Hartt's visual excavation of the politics of landscape, photography and empire. Inspired by Olana’s significant collection of nearly 2,000 19th century photographic prints, Hartt reflects on the ways in which human culture and activity shape the land, eroding the boundary between human construction and the natural world, just as Frederic Church did in creating the 250-acre earthwork that is Olana. The volume focuses on the concept of "terraforming"—how land is shaped for human use throughout history—within the unique context Olana. The book is composed of over 130 19th-century images, drawn from Olana’s permanent collection, by Désiré Charnay, Eadweard Muybridge and Carleton Watkins; these are seen as a nascent technology that became tools for expanding empires that used photography to chart new frontiers and to document the sediments of previous civilizations. The book also features documentation of the newly commissioned artistic intervention by Hartt that responds to the historic context of Olana itself, the artistic legacy of Church, and the way land is constantly shaped and reformed to reflect different and competing cultural values.ISBN 9798987667507. The Olana Partnership. hb. 144 pages. 160 colour ills. 29.8 x 21 cm.available
