THE RIVER INSIDE:
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN GUIDER
Tennessee State Museum
October 3-December 7, 2008
The River Inside is a traveling exhibition containing 75 platinum prints by Nashville professional photographer John Guider, who took a canoe from the creek behind his house in August 2003, through the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Ohio rivers, and down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Guider completed the upper portions of the Mississippi in three subsequent solo canoe trips in 2005, 2006, 2007. The exhibition will include artifacts of a journey in which his most important cargo was water and dry clothes. Guider’s canoe, his river maps, and his camera equipment will be on display as well.
Guider kept a journal chronicling his everyday routine, the life he observed along the riverbanks, the perils of paddling in waters engineered solely for industrial barge traffic, and several narrow escapes from life-threatening situations. His words will guide us through the exhibition.
The title, The River Inside, refers to the resonance between life-sustaining water sources and human beings. It also speaks to the importance of rivers as prime conduits of vital commodities and as almost forgotten cultural by-ways. The words and images offer us a revealing perspective on the natural and controlled inland waterways that bisect this country. And they remind us of the challenges of being alive; it took immense physical and mental courage to make this journey.
John’s journey is captured in a short documentary film, by Brittany Hailes and Coke Sams, Ruckus Film, which will be on view at the museum. www.ruckusfilm.com
A workshop for teachers, including educators from MTSU’s Center for Environmental Education, the Tennessean's Newspaper in Education, the Tennessee Geography Alliance, and APSU’s Project WET, will be held at the Tennessee State Museum on Monday, July 21, 2008.
For more information:
Jeff.Sellers@state.tn.gov