Old Hanford City Site and the Columbia River, Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Washington
Emmet Gowin, American, born 1941
negative 1986; print 2015
Toned gelatin silver print
Image: 14 × 13 7/8 in. (35.5 × 35.2 cm)
Sheet: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Hazen, by exchange
2015.17.9
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Photograph
Research Area
Photograph
Not on view
Label
The Columbia River—once called “the most radioactive river in the world”—winds past the remnants of Hanford City in southeastern Washington. Formerly a remote farming community, it was bulldozed in 1943 during the construction of the Hanford Site, a nuclear reactor and refinement compound that produced plutonium for the first atomic bombs. The complex continued operating through the Cold War, severely underreporting the high levels of radioactive waste being released into the environment for decades. Like the ghostly trace of the former town, Emmet Gowin’s beautifully toned photograph evokes the invisible threat of radioactivity and the lasting damage it can inflict on communities.
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
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
SART 30/SART 75, Photography II/III, Virginia Beahan, Spring 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
Exhibition History
Land and Lens: Photographers Envision the Environment, Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont, Fall 2017.
This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 20- July 24, 2022.
Waterways: Tension and Flow, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 4-August 23, 2015.
Provenance
Pace / MacGill Gallery, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2015.
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