Allison Grant
Allison Grant is an artist, writer, curator, and Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Her artworks have been widely exhibited at venues including the DePaul Art Museum, Azimuth Projects, Catherine Edelman Gallery and the Weston Art Gallery, among others. She was the 2019 recipient of the Developed Work Fellowship from the Midwest Center for Photography and shortlisted for the 2019 FotoFilmic Mesh Prize.
Works by Grant are held in collections at the DePaul Art Museum (Chicago), Columbia College Chicago, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Research Foundation art collection, and the King County Portable Works Collection (Seattle).
Essays by Grant have appeared in Minding Nature Journal and INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media, Volume 7, as well as numerous artist publications and exhibition catalogs. Grant holds an MFA from Columbia College Chicago (2011) and BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design (2004).
Artist Statement
Within the Bittersweet is a dark pastoral narrative about raising my children amid concerns about the impacts of climate change and environmental contamination. The photographs in the series were taken in and around my home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where dense vegetation and natural beauty entwine with industrial and fossil fuel facilities that dot our region. These industries spread particulates and toxins across the terrain and into our bodies and the atmosphere. In my artwork, the dark realities of the landscape we live in are interlaced with representations of my deep love for my children and the physical world around us—a living tapestry of incredible complexity that my daughters are only just coming to know. The climate crisis will undoubtedly reshape the world they inherit, and through photographs I negotiate the beauty and heartbreak of raising them on a wondrous planet in the midst of change.
Release Date: April 9, 2021
Long Summer Shadows was taken in my backyard in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The image uses shadow as a metaphor for my fears about parenting children who are from a generation that will face severe impacts from climate change and related environmental issues. The photograph is also about domestic life as a connecting point to global ecological challenges.
Long Summer Shadows, 2020
Release Date: October 22, 2021
Coal Road shows the entry to a surface mine near my home that is carved into the side of a coal bank. Chemical and fossil fuel industries have a strong presence in our area, and these operations contribute to climate change as they also emit pollutants into the air, water, and our bodies. Many industrial sites in West Alabama are tucked into lush wildlands where they operate at the margins of everyday life.
Coal Road, 2019