Shanna Merola
Drawer 4- Uranium 1, Archival Inkjet Pigment Print, 25 ½ x 37 ½ x 1, 2019
Artist Statement
The images in We All Live Downwind are culled from daily headlines – inspired by grassroots struggles against the forces of privatization in the face of disaster capitalism. In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein writes that the free market driven exploitation of vulnerable countries puts them into a “state of collective shock”. These landscapes bear witness to the inevitable fallout. On the surface, rubble hints at layers of oil and shale, cracked and bubbling from the earth below. Rising from another mound, rows of empty mobile homes bake beneath the summer sun. The bust of small towns left dry in the aftermath of supply and demand. In this place, only fragments of people remain, their mechanical gestures left tending to the chaos on auto. Reduced to survival, their struggle against an increasingly hostile environment goes unnoticed. Beyond the upheaval of production a bending highway promises never ending expansion - and that low rumble you hear to the west is getting louder.
Artist Bio
Shanna Merola is a visual artist, photojournalist and legal worker. In addition to her studio practice, she has been a human rights observer during political uprisings across the country - from the struggle for water rights in Detroit and Flint, MI, to the frontlines of Ferguson, MO and Standing Rock, ND. Her collages and constructed landscapes are informed by these events. Merola lives in Detroit, MI where she facilitates Know-Your-Rights workshops and coordinates legal support for grassroots organizations through the National Lawyers Guild. She has been awarded studio residencies and fellowships through the MacDowell Colony, the Studios at MASS MoCA, Kala Institute of Art, the Society for Photographic Education, the Puffin Foundation, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. Merola holds an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has been published and exhibited both nationally and abroad.
Drawer 4- Uranium 1, Archival Inkjet Pigment Print, 25 ½ x 37 ½ x 1, 2019
Artist Statement
The images in We All Live Downwind are culled from daily headlines – inspired by grassroots struggles against the forces of privatization in the face of disaster capitalism. In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein writes that the free market driven exploitation of vulnerable countries puts them into a “state of collective shock”. These landscapes bear witness to the inevitable fallout. On the surface, rubble hints at layers of oil and shale, cracked and bubbling from the earth below. Rising from another mound, rows of empty mobile homes bake beneath the summer sun. The bust of small towns left dry in the aftermath of supply and demand. In this place, only fragments of people remain, their mechanical gestures left tending to the chaos on auto. Reduced to survival, their struggle against an increasingly hostile environment goes unnoticed. Beyond the upheaval of production a bending highway promises never ending expansion - and that low rumble you hear to the west is getting louder.
Artist Bio
Shanna Merola is a visual artist, photojournalist and legal worker. In addition to her studio practice, she has been a human rights observer during political uprisings across the country - from the struggle for water rights in Detroit and Flint, MI, to the frontlines of Ferguson, MO and Standing Rock, ND. Her collages and constructed landscapes are informed by these events. Merola lives in Detroit, MI where she facilitates Know-Your-Rights workshops and coordinates legal support for grassroots organizations through the National Lawyers Guild. She has been awarded studio residencies and fellowships through the MacDowell Colony, the Studios at MASS MoCA, Kala Institute of Art, the Society for Photographic Education, the Puffin Foundation, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. Merola holds an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has been published and exhibited both nationally and abroad.
Drawer 4- Uranium 1, Archival Inkjet Pigment Print, 25 ½ x 37 ½ x 1, 2019
Artist Statement
The images in We All Live Downwind are culled from daily headlines – inspired by grassroots struggles against the forces of privatization in the face of disaster capitalism. In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein writes that the free market driven exploitation of vulnerable countries puts them into a “state of collective shock”. These landscapes bear witness to the inevitable fallout. On the surface, rubble hints at layers of oil and shale, cracked and bubbling from the earth below. Rising from another mound, rows of empty mobile homes bake beneath the summer sun. The bust of small towns left dry in the aftermath of supply and demand. In this place, only fragments of people remain, their mechanical gestures left tending to the chaos on auto. Reduced to survival, their struggle against an increasingly hostile environment goes unnoticed. Beyond the upheaval of production a bending highway promises never ending expansion - and that low rumble you hear to the west is getting louder.
Artist Bio
Shanna Merola is a visual artist, photojournalist and legal worker. In addition to her studio practice, she has been a human rights observer during political uprisings across the country - from the struggle for water rights in Detroit and Flint, MI, to the frontlines of Ferguson, MO and Standing Rock, ND. Her collages and constructed landscapes are informed by these events. Merola lives in Detroit, MI where she facilitates Know-Your-Rights workshops and coordinates legal support for grassroots organizations through the National Lawyers Guild. She has been awarded studio residencies and fellowships through the MacDowell Colony, the Studios at MASS MoCA, Kala Institute of Art, the Society for Photographic Education, the Puffin Foundation, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. Merola holds an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has been published and exhibited both nationally and abroad.