The latest exhibit at Arnika Dawkins Gallery features the work of photographer Jeanine Michna-Bales.
Michna-Bales traveled 1,400 miles to sites along the Underground Railroad. She photographed the landscapes at night, seeing her surroundings much like how those traveling on the Underground Railroad would have experienced on the route.
“This was America’s first civil rights movement,” said Michna-Bales in an interview with Lois Reitzes. “I tried to pick a first-person viewpoint and try to look at what they could have possibly seen as they were moving.”
She spent ten years researching the project and will be releasing a book featuring the photos. That will also include first-person accounts from those escaping slavery and abolitionists.
“They are beautiful and disturbing as well,” said gallerist Arnika Dawkins on the photos. “I look at them and imagine if I were in the situation that these people, or my ancestors, would have been in … I know I would be terrified.”
The exhibit, which is called “Through Darkness To Light: Seeking Freedom Along The Underground Railroad,” is on view at Arnika Dawkins Gallery through March 31, 2017.
