On Friday, June 10, from 5:00-7:00 pm, the Vermont Folklife Center will host an opening reception for our summer exhibition, “Visions of Place: The Photography of John Miller, Peter Miller, and Richard Brown.” “Visions of Place” will be on exhibit at the Vermont Folklife Center’s Vision & Voice Documentary Workspace in Middlebury through September 3rd.
Photographers Richard Brown (The View from the Kingdom, The Soul of Vermont), Peter Miller (Vermont People, Vermont Farm Women), and John Miller (Deer Camp, Granite & Cedar) have had an enormous impact on the ways in which people—both inside and outside Vermont—perceive the state and its inhabitants.
Each has photographed Vermont for over forty years, returning repeatedly to particular farmsteads, families, and individuals over extended periods of time. In the process they have created a richly nuanced record of the now historic culture of this region and a reference point for the dramatic changes that have occurred here over the past fifty years. But there is also a forward-looking dimension to the work.
The photographs presented in this exhibit are engaging because they capture things that matter to the photographers—and to us.
Their work invites us to see the world around us as they see it and to value those aspects of Vermont that they value. We enter into dialogue with John, Peter, and Richard as we make our own personal connections with their images.This exhibit brings the work of these photographers together for the first time and poses the questions, What do these photographs tells us about the culture of Vermont and the character of its people? How can we draw on the values embedded in these images as a resource for pondering the shape of our future?
The Vision & Voice Documentary Workspace is located in the Vermont Folklife Center headquarters building at 88 Main Street in Middlebury. Gallery hours are 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Tuesday through Saturday. For information about “Visions of Place” and its summer program series, call (802) 388-4964 or visit our Web site at www.vermontfolklifecenter.org.
The Vermont Folklife Center's
mission is to broaden, strengthen and deepen our understanding of Vermont and the surrounding region; to assure a repository for our collective cultural memory; and to strengthen communities by building connections among the diverse peoples of Vermont.
