Ordinary Miracles: Robert Glenn Ketchum’s Photographs of Cuyahoga Valley National Park

The lands of CVNP have been occupied by humans for over 12,000 years, and while some areas have been reclaimed for nature, CVNP and shaped its administration to include and work in partnership with existing towns, businesses, and cultural organizations. Ketchum’s large color photographs—taken throughout several seasons of weather—document the reality of the landscape at that time, including gas wells on farmland, industrial dump sites, and graffiti. 

Ketchum has used his photography as an advocacy tool for environmental conservation and education. In his book about the CVNRA project, Overlooked in America: the Success and Failure of Federal Land Management, the artist stated, “I am very concerned that photographers in America have created a subtly dangerous hierarchy that only champions the most obvious natural monuments and park locations—the most spectacular of our wildlands—at the expense of our more ‘ordinary’ landscapes. The long-term result of this kind of emphasis is that the public has ‘learned’ to appreciate and protect such sites specifically but sees the rest of our general landscape and its equally abundant resources as more expendable. We have become a nation of people who often travel great distances to have an intimate experience with the natural world while driving right by an equally important part of that natural world that is entirely overlooked.”  

This exhibition will be part of the wider community celebrations of Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s fiftieth anniversary.