"Troubled Waters" filmmaker speaks at the Westminster Town Hall Forum
Larkin McPhee, writer-director-producer of the ‘Troubled Waters’ film I worked on last year, speaks about documentary filmmaking and the search for truth.
Another photo from Ali Momeni / Minneapolis Art on Wheels “Animal Warmth” at Bell Museum.
Taken at last night’s Bell Museum Social. It’s amazing how much fun you can have discovering natural history objects through photography.
President Bruininks has portrayed himself as the valiant guardian of academic freedom in the Troubled Waters drama. But increasing dependency on private support — his policy — along with the glaring conflicts of interest within the administration — his people — have put that freedom into doubt. As private money and conflicts with that money pervade the University, it needs to implement more safeguards to protect its mission as an institution of public education.
Today I’ll be helping Matt Bakkom hang a series of prints that he made from photographs found in the basement of the Bell Museum. Tomorrow night we’ll host the first Bell Museum Social, inviting the public to experience Matt’s art projects, including a gallery installation, an intervention using the labels on the museum’s dioramas, and a projection program in the auditorium with live accompaniment from some really creative musicians.
This is one of the photos that Matt found in the course of his work here. With a little research, he determined that it was taken by a Botanist from the early part of the last century, a man named Ned Huff, whose photos document the biological expeditions and surveys of University researchers as they explored the Northern reaches of our state and into Canada.
Like the other photos, it was sorted into a category and labeled. This was from the category titled simply “Clouds” - which is a series of photographs taken over a span of decades, all documenting particular cloud formations.
I’m helping a University botanist source slides for his short presentation at next Thursday’s Bell Museum Social. He’ll be talking about the history and present context of biological surveys and collections. This image represents one example of something learned from a biological survey of Minnesota. It’s pretty striking when you see it on a map.
In case the print is too small: the yellow represents native prairie that used to be there, the red represents what is left.
