Known and Unknown Tracks

Label

This photograph shows a large-scale landscape crossed by two types of tracks: industrial tracks from oil-surveying machinery, and animal prints. Industrial tracks are symbolic of command-and-control systems on landscapes. Corporations use technology to identify resources beneath the surface and to control and extract them. Animal tracks, on the other hand, may be identified by those with indigenous knowledge and experience with the local land and wildlife. The types of tracks represent two ways that society can appraise its land.

Machine-made tracks signify valuing land for the economic capital it may hold: surveying machinery systematically projects vibrations underneath the surface to determine if the underlying earth holds oil or natural gas reserves that can be extracted for monetary gain. However, animal tracks can signify the wildlife that is also a feature of the landscape that some may deem valuable. Perhaps, for some, the value maintained by preserving flora and fauna may outweigh the potential monetary gains from altering the landscape and extracting fossil fuels. Some people may depend on the flora and fauna for wellbeing (economic or otherwise). The value people see embodied in the land may be of different types and degrees.

Because machine-made or animal tracks might be unfamiliar to various groups, viewers may see different tracks in the same image. Some may recognize both kinds of tracks and have different levels of familiarity with each, showing how exposure to multiple or blended cultures can shape perception. Interaction with this photograph can thus show how previous experience informs our relationships to the natural world around us. Additionally, it pints to the potentially alarming fact that machine-made marks may be more recognizable than animal-made one for many of today’s viewers.

From the 2019 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 95, Creating Knowledge and Control, curated by Annabelle Bardenheier '19, Conroy Programming Intern

The wetlands surrounding the Teshekpuk Lake in north-central Alaska shown in this photograph are the resting grounds for molting geese returning from their winter migrations to locations as far away as Mexico. Cutting through the image are tracks made by large exploratory vehicles traveling across the Arctic tundra in search of oil. These straight, unnatural lines offer stark contrast against the delicate and irregular threads marking the presence of wildlife that roamed the land.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ENGS 7, Climate Change, Mary Albert, Winter 2013

ENVS 7, Ecopsychology, Terry Osborne, Spring 2012

ENVS 7, Ecopsychology, Terry Osborne, Winter 2013

ENVS 80, Writing Our Way Home, Terry Tempest Williams, Spring 2012

GEOG 11, Qualitative Methods and the Research Process in Geography, Jennifer Fluri, Winter 2012

GEOG 11, Qualitative Methods and the Research Process in Geography, Jennifer Fluri, Fall 2013

ENVS 7, Ecopsychology, Terry Osborne, Winter 2014

ENGS 7, Climate Change, Mary Albert, Winter 2014

WRIT 5, Writing into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Fall 2014

WRIT 5, Writing into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Fall 2014

ENVS 7.3, Ecopsychology, Terry Osborne, Winter 2015

WRIT 5, Writing Into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Winter 2015

WRIT 5, Writing Into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Winter 2015

WRIT 5, After Humans, Christian Haines, Winter 2015

ENGS 7.2, Climate Change, Mary Albert, Winter 2015

WRIT 41, PBPL 41, Writing and Speaking Public Policy, Julie Kalish, Spring 2015

ENGS 7.02, Climate Change, Mary Albert, Winter 2019

ENVS 7, Ecopyschology, Terry Osborne, Winter 2019

ANTH 12.26, GEOG 68, Environmental Justice, Maron Greenleaf, Winter 2019

ENGL 7.5, Writing Wild, Patricia McKee, Spring 2019

GEOG 37, Climate for Human Security, Justin Mankin, Summer 2019

ENGS 7.02, Climate Change, Mary Albert, Winter 2020

GEOG 68, ANTH 12.26, Environmental Justice, Maron Greenleaf, Spring 2020

GEOG 16.01, A Climate for Human Security, Justin Mankin, Spring 2021

ANTH 55, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Spring 2021

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 12.26, Environmental Justice, Maron Greenleaf, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

ANTH 12.26/GEOG 39.01, Environmental Justice, Maron Greenleaf, Fall 2022

Environmental Studies 80.08, The Practice of Science Policy Diplomacy, Melody Brown Burkins, Spring 2023

Environmental Studies 80.08, The Practice of Science Policy Diplomacy, Melody Brown Burkins, Spring 2023

Russian 38.23, Imagining Siberia, Tatiana Filimonova, Spring 2023

Geography 40.05, African and African American Studies 28.10, Race, Space, and Nature, Elizabeth Shoffner, Summer 2024

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 56, Telling Landscapes, Images of American Development, Katy Briggs, Class of 2010, Programming Intern, Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 29-June 3, 2010.

A Space for Dialogue 95, Creating Knowledge And Control, Annabelle Bardenheier, Class of 2019, Conroy Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 10-September 22, 2019.

Looking Back at Earth: Contemporary Environmental Photography from the Hood Museum of Art Collection, Friends Gallery and the Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Mueum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 7-August 26, 2012.

Subhankar Banerjee, Artist-in-Residence, Winter 2009, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center for the Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 13-February 8, 2009.

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–April 19, 2022.

Publication History

Karl Jacoby, Subhankar Banerjee, Artist-in-Residence, Winter 2009, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, ill. p. 21.

Katy Briggs, A Space for Dialogue 56, Telling Landscapes, Images of American Development, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2010, cover ill.

Annabelle Bardenheier, Class of 2019, Conroy Intern, A Space for Dialogue 95, Creating Knowledge And Control, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019.

Provenance

The artist, Santa Fe, New Mexico; sold to present collection, 2009.

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