• Jeanine Michna-Bales

    Jeanine Michna-Bales

    Working primarily in the medium of photography, Jeanine Michna-Bales is a fine artist exploring the impact of cornerstone relationships on contemporary society— those relationships between ourselves, others and the land we inhabit. Her work lives at the intersection of curiosity and knowledge, documentary and fine art, past and present, anthropology and sociology, and environmentalism and activism. Michna-Bales’s practice of in-depth research, often from primary source materials, enables her to consider multiple points of view, understandings of cause and effect, and the socio-political context of the subject matters she pursues.   
  • From 2002-2016, Jeanine Michna-Bales logged countless hours of meticulous research and traveled extensively to create this series of images. The Underground Railroad comprised a group of committed individuals who worked against prevailing political beliefs to resist slavery. The the narrative of the Underground Railroad sheds light on the resilient and triumphant nature of Black Americans. The 19th-century clandestine network of abolitionists helped an estimated 100,000 slaves escape to the northern United States and Canada between 1830 and the end of the Civil War in 1865. They would travel 20 miles a night, following the stars, oral instructions, and signals along the way. This is the narrative that accompanies Michna-Bales’s series of nocturnal photographs.
  • They moved in constant fear of being killed outright or recaptured then returned and beaten as an example of what would happen to others who might choose to run. Under the cover of darkness, ‘fugitives’ traveled roughly 20 miles each night traversing rugged terrain while enduring all the hardships that Mother Nature could bring to bear. Occasionally, they were guided from one secret, safe location to the next by an ever-changing, clandestine group known as the Underground Railroad. Whether they were the enslaved trying to escape or whites and free blacks trying to help, both sides risked everything for the cause of freedom. From a cotton plantation just south of Natchitoches, Louisiana all the way north to Canada, this series of photographs can help us imagine what the long road to freedom may have looked like as seen through the eyes of one individual who made this epic journey.
  • “No man can tell the intense agony which was felt by the slave, when wavering on the point of making...
    “No man can tell the intense agony which was felt by the slave, when wavering on the point of making his escape. All that he has is at stake; and even that which he has not, is at stake, also. The life which he has, may be lost, and the liberty which he seeks, may not be granted.”
    - Frederick Douglass
    • Jeanine Michna-Bales Devil's Backbone Lewis County. Tennessee, 2014 Digital Chromogenic Print 17 x 24 1/2 inches
      Jeanine Michna-Bales
      Devil's Backbone Lewis County. Tennessee, 2014
      Digital Chromogenic Print
      17 x 24 1/2 inches
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    • Jeanine Michna-Bales Taking to The Hollow. Davidson County, Tennessee, 2014 Digital Chromogenic Print 17 x 24 1/2 inches
      Jeanine Michna-Bales
      Taking to The Hollow. Davidson County, Tennessee, 2014
      Digital Chromogenic Print
      17 x 24 1/2 inches
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    • Jeanine Michna-Bales Hidden in Plain Sight. Rose Mont Plantation, Sumner County, Tennessee, 2014 Digital Chromogenic Print 17 x 24 1/2 inches
      Jeanine Michna-Bales
      Hidden in Plain Sight. Rose Mont Plantation, Sumner County, Tennessee, 2014
      Digital Chromogenic Print
      17 x 24 1/2 inches
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  • “I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.” - Harriet Tubman
  • These mysterious images of the nocturnal wilderness illustrate overtly that the freedom seeker’s journey was no easy task. The escaping...
     
    These mysterious images of the nocturnal wilderness illustrate overtly that the freedom seeker’s journey was no easy task. The escaping slaves would encounter dense underbrush, tangled roots, twisted thickets, whipping branches, rustling leaves, precarious waters and hazardous rock formations. The American landscape in these images is unlike the other, more familiar versions that we know from the photographic canon. Other images show the night sky, the constellations clearly visible. They are direct references to instructions found in African-American spirituals, urging freedom seekers to follow the Big Dipper and the North Star.
    • Jeanine Michna-Bales Over the Hills, North Trimble County, Kentucky, 2014 Digital Chromogenic 25 x 36 in 63.5 x 91.4 cm
      Jeanine Michna-Bales
      Over the Hills, North Trimble County, Kentucky, 2014
      Digital Chromogenic
      25 x 36 in
      63.5 x 91.4 cm
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    • Jeanine Michna-Bales Eagle Hollow From Hunter's Bottom, Just Across the Ohio River, Indiana, 2014 Digital Chromogenic Print 25 x 36 inches
      Jeanine Michna-Bales
      Eagle Hollow From Hunter's Bottom, Just Across the Ohio River, Indiana, 2014
      Digital Chromogenic Print
      25 x 36 inches
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    • Jeanine Michna-Bales Orange Moon. Adams County, Indiana, 2014 Digital Chromogenic Print 17 x 24 1/2 inches
      Jeanine Michna-Bales
      Orange Moon. Adams County, Indiana, 2014
      Digital Chromogenic Print
      17 x 24 1/2 inches
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  • JEANINE MICHNA-BALES Walk Along the Ridge Between the Maumee and St. Joseph Rivers, Braun-Leslie House, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 2014 Archival...
    JEANINE MICHNA-BALES
    Walk Along the Ridge 

    Between the Maumee and St. Joseph Rivers, Braun-Leslie House, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 2014

    Archival Pigment Print
    17 x 24 1/2 inches
    • Jeanine Michna-Bales Lying Low, William Cornell House, outside Auburn, Indiana, 2014 Digital Chromogenic Print 25 x 36 inches
      Jeanine Michna-Bales
      Lying Low, William Cornell House, outside Auburn, Indiana, 2014
      Digital Chromogenic Print
      25 x 36 inches
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    • Jeanine Michna-Bales Dirt Road. Outside Coldwater, Michigan, 2014 Digital Chromogenic Print 17 x 24 1/2 inches
      Jeanine Michna-Bales
      Dirt Road. Outside Coldwater, Michigan, 2014
      Digital Chromogenic Print
      17 x 24 1/2 inches
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    • Jeanine Michna-Bales Freedom. Canadian soil, Sarnia, Ontario, 2014 Digital Chromogenic Print 17 x 24 1/2 inches
      Jeanine Michna-Bales
      Freedom. Canadian soil, Sarnia, Ontario, 2014
      Digital Chromogenic Print
      17 x 24 1/2 inches
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