‘Dust, Drought and Dreams Gone Dry’ Exhibit Closes Friday

MPL News:

  • Dust, Drought and Dreams Gone Dry Wrap-up

Friday is the final day to see the Dust, Drought and Dreams Gone Dry exhibit in Mesa Public Library’s Upstairs Gallery, before it is packed up and sent off to its next location. 

The Dust Bowl and its human, economic, political and environmental impacts are the topics of the exhibit. More than 2,000 visitors have seen the exhibit in Los Alamos to date, and many of them have commented about the relevance of this historic environmental disaster to today’s situation.

Programs associated with the exhibit have included a musical performance of Depression-era songs, a lecture by LANL scientist Dr. Nathan McDowell, showings of the Ken Burns film “The Dust Bowl”, book discussions of “The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan, a story-telling evening by Terry Foxx, visits by high school history and English classes and visits by members of the Los Alamos AAUW. Project scholar Dr. Gloria Cordova has introduced several of the programs.

Dust, Drought and Dreams Gone Dry tells the story of human endurance, human striving and human-caused environmental damage. Based on oral histories that were collected and stored in the Oklahoma State University Library, and on the correspondence of Caroline Henderson from the archives of Mount Holyoke College, the exhibit asks visitors to think about parallels with today’s world.

The Then and Now exhibit of local photography accompanies the Dust, Drought and Dreams Gone Dry exhibit in the Gallery. Developed by environmental scientist Terry Foxx and John Hogan, Then and Now shows historic photographs of the Pajarito Plateau and Los Alamos from as far back as the early 1900s, and compares those with contemporary photographs showing the same views.

The exhibition was organized by the American Library Association Public Programs Office, the Oklahoma State University Library, and the Mount Holyoke College Library. It was made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor. The Upstairs Art Gallery at Mesa Public Library hosts shows by local and regional artists, as well as travelling exhibits, 10 to 12 times each year.

For more information about the Gallery, call Katy Korkos at 505.662.8247. The Library event calendar webpage can be found at www.losalamosnm.us/library/Pages/Events.

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