Trembling Earth with David Walter Banks
Trembling Earth with David Walter Banks
Join us via Zoom on Wednesday, January 21st, at 7 pm EST
Over the course of three years, David Walter Banks paddled 500 miles and spent 69 nights deep in the Okefenokee Swamp. This 438,000-acre refuge is one of the largest intact freshwater ecosystems in the world and home to more than 600 species of wild plants, 200 species of birds, 100 species of amphibians and reptiles, and 35 species of fish, including some that are rare and endangered. Already affected by climate change and now under threat by industry, this unique place needs further protection before it is lost to future generations. Despite designation as a national wildlife refuge, North America’s largest blackwater swamp is still vulnerable. The refuge is protected, but its boundaries are not. David seeks to change that.
David's book Trembling Earth: A Transcendental Trip Through the Okefenokee is part activism and part spiritual epiphany. For David, the Okefenokee is more than its biological wealth; it holds a mystical energy that renders its well-trodden waterways terra incognita to the first-time visitor. Trembling Earth captures not only what can be seen but also what can be felt: the unmistakable yet ineffable quality of this primordial space. During our conversation with David, we will explore how photography, when practiced with curiosity and slow care, can reveal the inner life of a place, and how this critical work of seeing deeply into the places we love can be an essential part of inspiring protection and stewardship for the future.
Together, we will question how to open ourselves to the unique spirit or soul of a place and how to find visual language that honors the ineffable experiences that arise in intimate conversation with the land.
Also explore:
The Bitter Southerner: Trembling Earth
The Candid Frame Podcast with David Walter Banks
Instagram: @davidwalterbanks
David Walter Banks is a photographer and native Southerner based in Atlanta, Georgia. His work ranges from stylized portraiture to documentary photography.
His clients have included TIME Magazine, Apple, The New York Times, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Mother Jones, ProPublica, Toyota, The Wall Street Journal, Target, The Washington Post, Variety, and Red Bull among others.
His work is in the permanent collection of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library – Yale University, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection at the New York Public Library.
He has lectured at Western Kentucky University, Ohio University, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, University of Miami, SCAD, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Montana, and UMass.
