Photo Exhibition of Shale Impacts

Marcellus Shale Documentary Project at YSU This Month!

From an Article of the Y.S.U. News Center, Youngstown, OH, March 7, 2014

The Youngstown State University Department of Art is sponsoring a series of free and public events called the “Marcellus Shale Documentary Project: MSDP,” including a photography exhibit, lectures and film screening throughout the month of March.

• Now through April 4. The photography exhibit in the Bliss Hall Gallery through April 4 features the work of Noah Addis, Nina Berman, Brian Cohen, Scott Goldsmith, Lynn Johnson and Martha Rial. The photos tell the complex story of Marcellus Shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania. For the better part of a year, the six traveled across the Pennsylvania, meeting people, listening to and recording their stories – farmers, homeowners, tenants, medical practitioners, engineers, legal professionals, casual protesters, full-blown activists, people who feel they have benefited from gas drilling, people who feel they have been victimized, and people whose lives have been forever changed, for better and for worse.
• Tuesday, March 25, 7 to 9 p.m. Lecture on “The Science of Shale Gas: Geology, Seismology and Environmental Impacts” by Ray Beiersdorfer, YSU professor of Geology, in Moser Hall Room 2000.
• Wednesday, March 26, 7 to 9 p.m. Lecture on “The Science of Shale Gas: The latest evidence on leaky wells, methane emissions, and implications for policy” by Anthony R. Ingraffea, Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, in Moser Hall Room 2000.
• Thursday, March 27, 5 to 9 p.m. Gallery Talk/Gallery Reception with Brian Cohen, photographer and project director of the Marcellus Shale Documentary Project in Bliss Hall Room 2300.
• Friday, March 28, 4 p.m. The 90-minute documentary “Triple Divide” will be screened at the YSU McDonough Museum of Art. The film features exclusive interviews from the industry, experts, and Americans suffering in the wake of shale gas development. Academy Award-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo co-narrates the film that is co-directed by journalists Joshua Pribanic and Melissa Troutman. The film is a project by PublicHerald.org, a Pennsylvania based nonprofit organization.
• For more information, call the YSU Art Department at 330-941-3627.

One photo in the MSDP Exhibit by photographer Noah Addis shows three-year old Skylar Sowatskey, posing near her home in Connoquenessing Township (Butler County), PA. Her mother claims that their water was contaminated after several Marcellus Shale gas wells were drilled in the area between 2010 and 2011. The family plans to move from their home, where they have lived for 16 years.