Earth Day gala to showcase art of East Africa

By Doug Norris/Features Editor

Back when the bedrock of what is now Rhode Island was part of a volcanic arc named Avalonia, the future Ocean State shared its geological neighborhood with the future Africa, among other parts of Earth that ventured off to various longitudes and latitudes. As tomorrow's international Earth Day approaches, during an age when the planet feels smaller than ever, Africa will show up on the doorstep once again in a celebration of photography, paintings, drumming and tea sampling at Orbie's Cafe in Wakefield.

"Local Artists Make Tracks Through East Africa" features photography by Christi Turner, 29, of North Kingstown and paintings by Pam Santos, 48, of Wakefield. There also will be African drumming, led by Zach Geaber, outside the cafe and a sampling of rooibos teas, a distinctive hot beverage of southern Africa, inside. The event will take place from 6 to 10 p.m. with a portion of any proceeds supporting the Dorobo Fund for Tanzania. The artwork will remain on display through spring.

Turner's images documenting five months of working and traveling in East Africa will be available for sale on photographs, postcards, note cards, magnets and notebooks. She got started early in life as a photographer but became serious about it at age 16, during her junior year at North Kingstown High School, when the North Kingstown Rotary supported her as an exchange student to Chile.

"My camera was a window to their experiences," she said. "I began using images as a way to document projects and share what was going on from a field work standpoint."

Santos will showcase 10 to 12 watercolors based on two trips she has taken in the past decade to Ethiopia. The first, in 2004, was to adopt her youngest son, Eli. The second trip she took with her then 14-year-old daughter, Emily, during which they conducted a painting workshop for children in an orphanage and visited Eli's former home. The paintings were made later, based on photographs taken in Africa.

"What struck me most was how everyone just lives very sustainably," Santos said. "They live without a lot of things that we consider essential. And yet in all of the important ways they live the way humans are supposed to be living."

Earth Day is about recognizing the natural abundance of the world we call home and the need to keep the environment healthy and sustainable for our continued prosperity. But it's also about our connections to the people, places, plants and animals that share the planet.

For Turner, whose emphasis on "sustainable photography" is a mantra as she continues to pursue opportunities "to grow into a photojournalist," the connection between conservation and community is evident in all of her experiences since high school. Not yet 30, her resume already reads like a biography from a high-achiever with an AARP card.

As a student at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., she double-majored in international affairs and foreign languages while spending one year at an overseas study program in the Dominican Republic, where she worked with a human rights NGO (non-governmental organization) and won the Student of the Year award from the organization that ran the program. After graduation, she served two two-year tours as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar - one in the health sector, the other in the environmental sector. She remained there, consulting in the areas of translation/interpretation and conservation/sustainable development, working for the Education Development Center and making education radio programs for rural schools, when a military coup happened in February 2009.

"We were ducking gunfire in some places," she said.

The development funding got cut and her job ended, so she traveled in Europe before returning to Madagascar for a six-week trek, followed by a short stint managing an eco-lodge. She went to London in December 2009, working on a few consultancy projects writing proposals for NGOs in Madagascar and hanging out with the staff of RadioActive, a London-based group that had helped build the solar-power community radio station she ran in Madagascar. (She's their community radio coordinator.) She also spent some time at a photography studio, working on improving her shutterbug skills.

Last April through July, she returned to Rhode Island, working six part-time jobs, including gigs at Narrow River Kayak and Narrow River Cafe in Middlebridge. In August she worked in Kenya and Tanzania as an assistant leader on Lewis & Clark College's East Africa overseas studies program, then extended her trip pursuing photo essays, travel writing and excursions across Kenya by train and to Uganda to track mountain gorillas.

"I was gone almost 10 years from Rhode Island," she said. "Coming back has been a really interesting experience. I'm actually pleased to see how much is going on here in the areas of the arts and social activism and with issues of sustainability and community-building. While I'm here, I'm trying to explore as much of Rhode Island as I can. Being back has reminded me how beautiful this state can be."

Santos, who teaches watercolor painting in classes at the Neighborhood Guild and at her home on Thursday nights, said that traveling is a great teacher.

"It reminds you how much you can really do without," she said. "And how really connected we are to everyone else in the world. We all really just want the same things in life."

Turner, who has contributed photography for a Madagascar Travel Companion guide that also will be available at Orbie's, has been accepted for a master's program this fall at King's College in London in the field of environment, politics and globalization, but she's not sure whether she wants to take on the loan yet. She's also considering the University of Rhode Island's master's program in environmental science and management. Meanwhile, she will continue looking for opportunities to travel and take pictures.

"I've got a lot to learn, but I'm always looking for that moment that essentially makes or breaks an image," she said. "Or for the next adventure."

Orbie's Cafe is located at 396 Main St., Wakefield. For more information about the artwork or the Dorobo Fund, log on to www.christiturner-sustainablephotography.com, www.pamsantos.org or www.dorobofund.org.

 

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