MOORHEAD — Home means different things to different people.
A trio of Minnesota State University Moorhead alumni share their visions on the subject with “Three Ways Home” at the Rourke Art Gallery + Museum.
Each of the photographers is from North Dakota and has an affinity for the state that comes out in the works.
The show runs through Oct. 25.
Even though she no longer lives in the state a big part of Sarah Christianson’s heart remains on the family farm near Hillsboro, North Dakota. It’s where her great-great grandfather homesteaded in 1884 and where her parents are the last in the family to farm.
Around the time she graduated from MSUM, her grandfather died, her grandmother moved to town and the family house was sold.
“I had this realization that our family history was changing before my eyes, so I felt it really important at that time to begin documenting,” she said in a gallery talk.
Sarah Christianson has photographed her family farm for 20 years.
Contributed / Sarah Christianson
She’s been photographing the family’s 1200-acre farm since and features her work alongside family portraits from over the decades in her section of the exhibit.
“My grandparents had collected so many family documents and photographs and had this wonderful archive and documented history of our family going back to Norway,” she said. “I consider my role as a historian. You just add in the next layer to this.”
She combines aerial photos of the land with detailed shots from the field and the house in her project, capturing the rich blackness of the soil and the bright whites of clouds.
Sarah Christianson’s work is on display at The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum.
Contributed / The Rourke
Every time she returns from her home in Oakland, California, she takes more photos of the special place.
“It’s been really necessary — hard, but necessary, cathartic for me,” she said. “Seeing this coming in the distance over 20 years, it’s been sort of a slow way to come to terms with that and process it, because home is so precious to me.”
Chris Franz discovered that while you can go home again, it may not be the same.
The Mandan, N.D., native graduated from MSUM and then went to graduate school, then he and his wife moved back so he could work at the University of Mary.
An avid walker, he brought his camera with him as he explored his hometown. At first it was exciting as everything felt familiar. But that changed.
Chris Franz shoots scenes around his hometown, Mandan, N.D.
Contributed / Chris Franz
“Everything that I photographed, I felt, it’s not there anymore,” he said. “My memories were not there. My childhood’s not there.”
Familiar places, like a bus stop or a building had made way for something else.
Inspired by rereading John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charlie” — particularly the passage about crossing the Missouri River, “… where the map should fold” — he hit the streets again with a different frame of mind.
“I had to stop thinking so much about what my past was and just respond to what’s there. And that’s what photography is. It’s a response to what’s in front of you,” he said.
Chris Franz photographs the scenes around his hometown, Mandan, N.D.
Contributed / Chris Franz
His photos capture sights both on city streets as well as in fields and along the Missouri River.
“What I learned from this project is that place is always changing. And place is a combination of your memories. But it’s also what’s current and what’s changing,” he said. “It’s like this love letter to that place in my experiences. That’s where we grew up and yeah, it’s now completely different.”
For Lewis Ableidinger, home isn’t an address, or even a city, but rather the whole state of North Dakota.
He grew up on a farm near Kensal, N.D., 35 miles north of Jamestown and now lives in Harvey, N.D.
Lewis Ableidinger captures birds flying around a tree.
Contributed / Lewis Ableidinger
“I’ve always been attracted to small towns in North Dakota,” he said. “I like to travel the state and see what I find because I want to capture what’s there and the people that are there, speak up more of a focus as well.”
He’s had his photographs of the state published in national newspapers and magazines.
“I am putting together a visual story of North Dakota that, hopefully, somebody can see that it’s not just some flat, hellscape. It’s an interesting, occasionally beautiful state.”
Lewis Ableidinger is one of three photographers featured in “Three Ways Home” at the Rourke Art Gallery + Museum.
Contributed / Lewis Ableidinger
He captures images of old, wood windmills tilting over the snowy prairie, small towns empty at night and abandoned houses and churches.
“I’m fascinated with abandoned places and what people leave behind. What happens to a place where people just disappear, which is a mystery itself,” he said. “I kind of want to know what happens when the population leaves.”
For almost 30 years John Lamb has been covering arts and entertainment in the Red River Valley. He started writing for the High Plains Reader in 1997 and moved to The Forum in 2002. He is an Annenberg fellow, an occasional judge for talent shows and food contestants and co-hosts the weekly “Gardening Together: The Podcast.” He’s rubbed shoulders with Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, drank with National Book Award winner Colm McCann, had coffee with Grammy-winning classical musician Peter Schickele and interviewed countless other artists, actors, musicians, writers and assorted interesting people. Contact John at jlamb@forumcomm.com.