A culmination of a multi-year project by internationally known photographers Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, the exhibition is touring the state through the North Dakota Museum of Art’s Rural Arts Initiative.

In 2019, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Museum commissioned the artists to create a body of photographs probing the essence of North Dakota’s current landscape, people, and way of life. The Great Open interweaves their distinctive photographic styles to create a multi-layered portrait of North Dakota.

In the exhibition, Rebecca Norris Webb takes a poetic and intimate look at the natural world of North Dakota. Her work often explores where the natural world and one’s inner landscape meet during times of change and upheaval, such as with her book and NDMOA exhibition, “My Dakota: An Elegy for My Brother Who Died Unexpectedly.”

Drawn to the great openness of the mixed grass prairie and the broken, surreal beauty of the South Dakota badlands while grieving for her brother, she began this project photographing in the North Dakota badlands. Norris Webb photographed other North Dakota landscapes resonant with loss and memory, including the Lincoln Drive Park, once home to some 350 residences lost in the 1997 Red River flood in Grand Forks; and the Fort Totten Historical Site, once an Indian boarding school.

Submitted Photos These photos are part of “The Great Open: Photographs from North Dakota” exhibition by photographers Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb at the Northwest Arts Center, Minot.

Alex Webb, raised predominantly in New England, has photographed in more than 50 countries and 200 cities around the world. Webb takes a more global and often urban approach to North Dakota. During two trips, he photographed in the parks, neighborhoods, and flea markets of the more populated cities and towns of the state, including Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck, Minot and Williston. He also photographed at various festivals and other events across the state, including the Icelandic Festival in Mountain, the Spirit Lake Professional Bull Riders on the Spirit Lake Reservation, the Morton County Fair and Rodeo in New Salem, and the Twin Buttes Powwow, south of the Missouri River on the Fort Berthold Reservation.

Additional programming is planned while “The Great Open” is in Minot, including a public reception, multiple presentations, and workshops. The artists will be attending the public reception on Thursday, Sept. 5, from 6:30-8 p.m., held in the Walter Piehl Gallery.

The couple will present selections from their body of work in two public lectures on Friday, Sept. 6. Part of the Art Seminar Series, they will present “Blind Man & the Bus” at 12 p.m. in the newly renovated Hartnett Hall. The seminar will showcase a mix of projects by the Webbs, some solo and some collaborative.

A social and refreshments will precede “The Poetics of Light” at 7 p.m. in the Hartnett Hall Collaboration Space on the second floor. The evening photo viewing and book reading features five bodies of work.

On Saturday, Sept. 7, two photography workshops are being held in Hartnett Hall. Interested community members are encouraged to contact Minot State Professor Ryan Stander for details. Space is limited, so RSVP is required.

Submitted Photos These photos are part of “The Great Open: Photographs from North Dakota” exhibition by photographers Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb at the Northwest Arts Center, Minot.

While at the Northwest Arts Center, the exhibition will be available for viewing Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., and Saturday, 1-5 p.m. The center is closed on holidays.

The Walter Piehl Gallery is located on the lower level of the Gordon B. Olson Library at Minot State University, with its own entrance on the south side of the library. The exhibition and related events are free and open to the public.

The exhibition is made possible by the North Dakota Museum of Art and the Rural Arts Initiative. Part of the Rural Arts Initiative, funded by the state of North Dakota.

Submitted Photos These photos are part of “The Great Open: Photographs from North Dakota” exhibition by photographers Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb at the Northwest Arts Center, Minot.