Department of Special Collections – Long Island Studies Institute

presents

A Photography Exhibition

THE ART OF DESTRUCTION
Images of Superstorm Sandy

Monday, March 4-Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Student Center Café
Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center
North Campus

    Superstorm Sandy was a weather event of historic proportions. Eleven days after the storm the Long Island Studies Institute at Hofstra University asked the public for digital photographs that documented the effects of the storm on Long Island. The plan was to preserve and arrange the photographs and, in the future, make them available to researchers. What we received, however, not only documented destruction and loss of property, but also depicted the beauty and drama of nature.

    In this exhibition we found that there was art in destruction; that the photographers’ eyes were drawn to the beautiful line or color or juxtaposition of form. Although many of the photographers captured the same type of image, the result differed tremendously. There are 30 photographs in this exhibit, many of downed trees and wires, yet each photo exposes the subject in a different light. Although the storm left Long Island devastated in so many ways, at the very center, these photographs show how nature can be inspiring.  

Geri Solomon
Curator and Organizer of the Exhibition
Assistant Dean of Special Collections and University Archivist
Hofstra University Library Special Collections

In conjunction with the conference From the Outside In: Sustainable Futures for Global Cities and Suburbs

Photo by Ryan Brook, Saint James, NY