Meg Turner: Chernobyl and the Market Street Power Station

December 12, 2013 – January 6, 2014
Opening: Saturday, Dec 14, 6-9pm
Artist Talk: Sunday, Dec 15, 4pm

Meg Turner’s first solo show features work shot this summer in the Ukraine, on site at Chernobyl and the abandoned worker’s city of Pripyat, paired with new work from her years of shooting in New Orleans at the Market Street Power Station. Two abandoned powerplants, both bearing witness to changing technology and fatal weaknesses in design: one a cataclysmic disaster, the other a failure to adapt, both transformed from industrial giant to contaminated ruin and inspiration for scientists, photographers, filmmakers and developers. One notorious, the other unnoticed even by its neighbors.

The work showcases an array of mediums, from Photogravure to wet plate collodion to silver gelatin 3-d stereograms, and one large-scale installation. The room within the room uses mirror and building materials to create a fully immersive experiece and ties the show together to kidnap the viewer and fully bring them inside the dusty brick corridors of old industrial ruins.

Artist Talk: THE ALLURE OF RUINS
On Sunday, December 15th, Meg Turner will talk about her new work featured in her solo show CHERNOBYL. She will also discuss her past work and the history of artists obsessing over, documenting, and transforming ruins. From the Romans to Piranesi to the WPA, from the Coliseum to Palenque and Angkor Wat and Detroit, ruins tell us about our history, our nostalgia and why things fail. And sometimes, ruins provide us a vast space to explore and destroy. The event begins at 4pm, and is free and open to the public.