This fall it has been my pleasure to work with interns from the State University of New York at Buffalo and through a local Buffalo/Western New York organization called the Western New York Environmental Alliance. I am a board member of that organization and serve as the Chair of the Habitat and Natural Resources Work Group. One of the interns that I have been working with, Amber Potter, visited the Grand Opening of the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery opening in October. Below is her review of the opening, posted today at GROWWNY, the Western New York Environmental Alliance’s website.
¡Buen Vivir! – Climate Change: Faces, Places & Protest
by Amber Potter, GROWWNY Intern
In October, I had the opportunity to attend the grand opening of Orin Langelle’s gallery, ¡Buen Vivir!, which showcased the exhibit “Climate Change: Faces, Places & Protest – Photos from the front lines.” The gallery proved to be a very powerful, eye-opening experience about the effects that climate change has upon people all the world over.
The name of the gallery, ¡Buen Vivir!, is a concept stemming from indigenous Latin American culture. ¡Buen Vivir! means life in harmony between humans, communities, and the Earth – where work is not a job to make others wealthier, but for a livelihood that is sustaining, fulfilling and in tune with the common good.
According to Langelle, “This is a concept slowly spreading northwards and I am helping bring it to Buffalo through the images in my photography gallery.” Langelle Photography, a project sponsored by the Global Justice Ecology Project, documents the “struggle for societal transformation toward justice, equity and ecological balance.”
