Todd Forsgren
September 13, 2021 - February 28, 2022
First Friday reception: 6:00-8:00 pm October 1, 2021
Informal gallery talk with the artist at 7:00 pm
Todd Forsgren
Ornithological Photographs
These photographs depict birds that have been temporarily caught in mist nets during ornithological research. It is a unique moment, just before a researcher removes the bird from the net to be weighed and measured (and thus the bird becomes quantified by these concise numbers). The bird is then released and flies away, disappearing back into the forest as well as into the data the scientists have gathered. In these nets the birds dangle between our framework of ‘the bird in the hand and the bird in the bush,’ the wild animal seems neither known nor unknown. I have sought out this moment as a space to consider our values and balance our empathy with our capability to think abstractly.
ABOUT THE ARTIST: Todd Forsgren uses photography to examine themes of ecology, perceptions of landscape, and social justice while striving to strike a balance between art history and natural history. To do so, he employs a range of approaches, from documentary strategies to experimental techniques. He teaches at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, and also serves as the director of the Ryniker-Morrison Gallery on campus. He is cofounder of Spectacle Box and AgX as well as a member of both Atlantika Collective and f/4.5 Collective. Todd studied biology and visual arts at Bowdoin College and earned an MFA in photography from J.E. Purkyne University in the Czech Republic. He has been artist-in-residence at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the Artist's Enclave at I-Park, and Maryland Hall for Creative Arts, as well as a Fulbright Fellow in Mongolia. His photographs have been featured in National Geographic, Slate, Wired, The Guardian, Nature, New Scientist, and TIME's Lightbox, to name a few. They've been shown at numerous venues including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Noorderlicht Photography Festival, the Academy Art Museum, the Rotterdam Photo Festival, the Indian Photography Festival, Koenig & Clinton, Carroll & Sons, Heiner Contemporary, and Jen Bekman Gallery.