MJ Sharp artist talk: “Our Disappearing Darkness and Recreating True Night”

Until the advent of artificial lighting 200 years ago, darkness and night had been the universal human experience and the one for which we and all life on earth evolved. Recent excavations at some prehistoric sites in the UK have revealed evidence that megalithic stone monuments thousands of years old may have been visited at night or in low light. Recent studies have shown that the effects of rapidly increasing light pollution have deleterious effects on human, plant, and animal life.

Noted Durham photographer MJ Sharp will give an artist talk on her Fulbright year in Cornwall, which resulted in the photography project “Our Disappearing Darkness and Recreating True Night,” in which she used long-exposure techniques to photograph monuments around southwestern England in the dead of night.

And as a bonus, on Thursday, October 12th, the Click! Photography Festival will present an installation from this work at the Durham Fruit that evokes the artist’s nighttime contemplation and nocturnal photographing of such prehistoric ruins.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30. Program begins at 7:00