Sarah Christianson photographs, 2012-2015
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Summary
- Creator:
- Christianson, Sarah, 1982- and Archive of Documentary Arts (Duke University)
- Abstract:
- Sarah Christianson is a photographer originally from North Dakota. This portfolio of 30 11x14 inch color chromogenic prints is from her project, "When the Landscape is Quiet Again: North Dakota's Oil Boom," which won the 2015 Archives of Documentary Art Award for Women Documentarians. Since 2012, Christianson has been documenting through her photographs the legacy of oil booms and busts in North Dakota and how the region's agrarian landscape and environment is changing again today, due to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Acquired by the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
- Extent:
- 1.0 Linear Foot (1 flat box)
1.2 Gigabytes (1 optical disc containing 30 digital images in TIFF format.) - Language:
- Materials in English
- Collection ID:
- RL.11088
Background
- Scope and content:
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The Sarah Christianson photography portfolio "When the Landscape is Quiet Again: North Dakota's Oil Boom," won the 2015 Archive of Documentary Arts Award for Women Documentarians. The collection contains 30 11x14 inch Type-C (chromogenic) limited edition color photographic prints on Kodak Endura paper made in the darkroom directly from 120mm and 4x5 inch color negatives, accompanied by one DVD with 30 digital TIFF files, from scans made directly from the negatives. Christianson provided the following abstract of her work:
"Since 2012, I have been documenting the legacy of oil booms and busts in my home state and how the region is changing again today, thanks to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. My photographs bear witness to the transformation of western North Dakota's quiet agrarian landscape into an industrial zone dotted with well sites, criss-crossed by pipelines, lit up by natural gas flares, and contaminated by oil and toxic saltwater spills. The oil fields are currently pumping out over a million barrels per day from 10,000 active wells, and companies are planning to drill thousands more."
"This project grew out of the internal conflict I felt over my family's involvement, the need to reconcile their role, and a responsibility to document these important events. Over the past three years, I have driven nearly 9,000 miles and flown for over eight hours in small Cessna planes across the length and breadth of the Williston Basin to create my images. I use traditional photographic processes because of the descriptive detail inherent in large-format negatives. I use a 4x5 view camera to consider the landscape in a slower, deeper manner. I craft my chromogenic prints in the darkroom because I enjoy the intimate, hands-on process of coaxing each image from the light and chemistry."
Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.
- Biographical / historical:
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Sarah Christianson (b. 1982) grew up on a four-generation family farm in the heart of eastern North Dakota's Red River Valley (an hour north of Fargo). Immersed in that vast expanse of the Great Plains, she developed a strong affinity for its landscape. This deep-rooted connection to place has had a profound effect on her work: despite moving to San Francisco in 2009, she continues to document the subtleties and nuances of the Midwestern landscape and experience through long-term projects.
Christianson earned an MFA in photography from the University of Minnesota. Her work has been exhibited internationally and featured by Mother Jones, High Country News, and PDN. She has received project grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission and the Center for Cultural Innovation. Her first book, Homeplace (Daylight Books), documents the history and uncertain future of her family's farm by interweaving her images with old snapshots and documents culled from her personal archive. Throughout her work, she uses her personal experiences and connection to the land to evoke a strong sense of place, history, and time.
The project "When the Land is Quiet Again" was funded by an Individual Artist Commission grant of the San Francisco Arts Commission and an Investing in Artists grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation. Additional support was provided by RayKo Photo Center and in-the-field assistance was given by the Dakota Resource Council, the Killdeer Mountain Alliance, the Northwest Landowners Association, and numerous other individuals.
- Acquisition information:
- The Sarah Christianson photographs were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library as a gift in 2015.
- Processing information:
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Processed by Ben Saalfeld, November 2015 and Matthew Farrell, February 2016.
Accession(s) described in this collection guide: 2015-0114.
- Physical facet:
- 30 11x14 inch Type-C limited edition photographic prints on Kodak Endura paper made directly from 120 and 4x5 color negatives.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Subjects
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- Preferred citation:
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[Identification of item], Sarah Christianson photographs, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.