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Photo courtesy of “This Place of Silence.”
Ohio University Libraries will welcome back photographer Ian Adams for another Authors @ Alden on Wednesday, Oct. 16, beginning at 5:30 p.m. in Alden Library’s 1951 Lounge on the fourth floor.
Adams and Tim Anderson, associate professor of geography, will be discussing Adams’ new book, “This Place of Silence: Ohio’s Cemeteries & Burial Grounds,” which was a collaboration with fellow photographer Randall Lee Schieber and writer Robin L. Smith. The presentation will include a visual presentation with an interview by Anderson and a Q&A. The event is free and open to everyone.
What began as an idea in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, sparked into a larger project to incorporate some images that Adams and Schieber had previously taken with new cemetery photography and writing by Smith. The book took four years to create with over 25,000 miles traveled by Adams and Schieber to more than 250 of Ohio’s cemeteries and burial grounds. With all 88 Ohio counties represented, the photographic portrait is a sneak peek of the 17,000 cemeteries in the state.
Adams mentioned in an interview that he hopes others will use the book as an opportunity to spark interest in the different ways cemeteries can be viewed.
“People don’t think about visiting cemeteries, so we want to disabuse those thoughts and instead appeal to an interest in art, nature and history,” Adams said. “We want to tempt people to follow in our footsteps.”
“This Place of Silence,” is one of many Ohio University Press books published each year. Adams has a long and successful relationship with OHIO and the Libraries and has worked with the Press as a partner for several of his publications.
“They’re the best,” Adams said. “I enjoy working with them. They’re the best relation[ship] I’ve had with a publisher, and it’s… wonderful.”
Anderson, associate professor of geography , will be the interviewer for the event. Anderson gave high praise for the book with the photographs being both beautiful and stunning. He also mentioned in an email that the book brings an importance to highlighting cemeteries from nearly every part of the state of Ohio, and what that showcases about the area and its history.
“By ‘reading’ the landscapes of these cemeteries captured in the book's photographs, we gain insight into larger societal issues and discourses such as the primacy of ethnic identity, the nostalgia for an idealized pastoral ideal that looms large in the American mind, and how we choose to commemorate and memorialize the past and prominent figures from the past,” Anderson wrote.
Anderson mentioned that he hopes that others will leave the event with a fuller understanding of how and why cemeteries are an important and symbolic element of Ohio's cultural landscapes.
“I hope that attendees will learn something about the nature of cemeteries – their function as ‘sacred’ spaces; [and] how gravestones and cemetery landscapes in general can tell us something about the cultural and social idea(l)s of those who designed them,” Anderson wrote.
Before and after the presentation, copies of “This Place of Silence” will be sold and Adams will be available for signing. Be sure to stop by for Adams’ visit to Alden Library on Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 5:30 p.m. in the 1951 Lounge on the fourth floor.
For more information, or to request accessibility accommodations for this event, please contact Kelly Roder.