Museum Hosts Portraits of Pastoralism

The Campbell County Rockpile Museum is pleased to announce the opening of a traveling exhibit from Wyoming rancher, author, and photographer Cat Urbigkit.

Portraits of Pastoralism is a 20-image traveling public art exhibit of Cat Urbigkit’s black-and-white photographs of pastoralists around the globe, illuminating the challenges faced by people whose cultures involve the seasonal movement with livestock herds (transhumance). This educational art exhibit allows the public to see the faces of the pastoralists and their animals, from cattle and sheep producers on the public rangelands in the American West, to goat herders in Spain, and women milking their yaks in Mongolia. It will help museum visitors to understand that a cowboy on horseback in Wyoming is conducting the same activity as the Lesotho cattle boy, and the same holds true for various people and cultures throughout the globe.

The exhibit will help the public to gain an understanding of the vital importance of these seasonal movements of people and livestock, and the threats to continuing this practice. Urbigkit’s goal is to promote public support for maintaining this sustainable use of natural resources, while recognizing and treasuring the human value of a close association with the land.

The exhibit features photos from four continents, and includes images of pastoralists from the American West, Africa, Nepal, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Spain, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The exhibit is a celebration of humanity, with diversity from around the globe.

Campbell County Historical Society and the Wyoming Humanities Council present: Cat Urbigkit’s “Transhumance Today” March 13th at 7:00 p.m. at the Rockpile Museum There will be two opportunities to hear Urbigkit speak in Gillette on March 13th. Cat will present “Writing from the Range” to local students (kindergarten through sixth grade) in the Wyoming Room at the Campbell County Public Library from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. Her children’s books will be available for purchase and she will gladly sign them after her presentation.

At 7:00 p.m. at the Rockpile Museum, Cat Urbigkit will explore transhumance around the globe at a FREE presentation sponsored by the Campbell County Historical Society. Transhumance is the seasonal movement of livestock with their human herders, including camel herders in Mongolia, water buffalo tenders in India, and goat herders in Spain. “Transhumance Today” is presented by the Wyoming Humanities Council as part of its Humanities Forum.

Cat is an award-winning author and photographer based on a sheep ranch near Pinedale. Global transhumance is a constant thread of Urbigkit's non-fiction nature book, Shepherds of Coyote Rocks: Public Lands, Private Herds and the Natural World, released in October 2012 by The Countryman Press, a division of W.W. Norton.

Visit Cat’s website at www.paradisesheep.com to learn more about her literature and art.

For additional information about the exhibit and presentation or the Campbell County Rockpile Museum, please call CCRM at (307) 682-5723 or visit www.rockpilemuseum.com.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog