Kara Heitz, Speaker
Historian and lecturer in the Liberal Arts department at the Kansas City Art Institute
The Lingering Dust: Visualizing 1930s Kansas through Art, Photography, and Film
Presentation by: Kara Heitz
In “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy steps out of her black-and-white farmhouse into the brilliant technicolor spectacle of Oz commenting, “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Films like “The Wizard of Oz,” the documentary “The Plow That Broke the Plains,” Farm Security Administration photography, and controversial artworks like John Steuart Curry’s Statehouse murals and Alexandre Hogue’s Dust Bowl paintings were seen as portraying a bleak and broken landscape. However, Kansans countered this characterization with images promoting the state as productive and bountiful. Is Kansas a space of extreme weather and desolation, or a land of abundance and beauty— or perhaps both? This talk will examine the contrasting depictions of Kansas in the 1930s, in film and art, and how they persisted in later decades.
Contact Kara directly about speaking at your event:
kara@cliosscroll.com
(202) 213-3201
Mission Hills