The New Arcadians
Photographs from Summer Camp
by Carey Russell

September 12 – October 19, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 12th, 4 - 6 pm, Artist talk 5 pm

The New Arcadians is a photographic essay on the ethnography of scouting and the transformative experience summer camp represents for boys forming a relationship to nature and one another along the path to manhood.  Summer camps have proven a fertile ground for teen, "coming of age" comedies and slasher horror films, however, in my experience summer camps are one of the last places where young people can have an intimate experience with wild nature, which is often their first and will continue to influence them for the rest of their lives.  The title of this series borrows it’s name from the wilderness of Greek mythology and the pastoral landscapes of the English romantics, who revisioned Arcadia as a place where nature and mankind found a way of living in harmony with each other.  The project represents my desire to learn more about the origins of my adult life as a man, as an environmental scientist and a member of the deep ecology movement, all of which I believe are deeply rooted in my earlier experiences as a boy scout.  Through the work, I am discovering how the influence of American Indian mythologies, early American naturalists such as Henry David Thoreau, and Theodore Roosevelt’s taste for wilderness are strongly reflected in the forms and ceremonies of scouting to this day and the principled belief that to make a better citizen out of a youth, you must also make them a better woodsman. 

As a naturalist I have come to see scouting as a critical source of environmental education, the results of which have enormous social, ethical, political, and spiritual dimensions for young people who experience them.  Nonetheless, in the largely urban era in which we currently live, it could easily be said that a child will fare well enough without learning rope craft, archery, the identification of native plants and animals, totemism or other literacies from by-gone eras.  Modern society does not presently select for these skills, but it makes me hopeful that places where these skills are handed down still exist and the belief that these ways of seeing and being are in fact ultimately essential to our happiness and survival.  Through these images, I invite people to revisit their own memories from camp, their first night sleeping under the stars, the botched attempts at campfire cooking, the stories told around the flames afterward and the friends you shared them with.  I come to this project as a fellow scout who feels he is one who has benefited.       

Carey Russell
August 15, 2009
Eagle Scout, Troop 349, Tyler, Texas (1988)

A native of East Texas, Carey holds a B.A. in theater production from the University of Texas in Austin, and a M.S. in landscape ecology from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.  He was a 2007 “Images of the Year” finalist sponsored by American Photo magazine and twice exhibited in Houston’s international photography biennial, FotoFest.  This winter he will be photographing a reportage about three Burmese families living in a refugee camp in Mae Sot, Thailand.  In addition to his work as a photographer, he has worked for The Nature Conservancy, served as a wilderness ranger and firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and as a forestry consultant in the Khangai Nuruu National Park in central Mongolia.As a filmmaker, Carey was the Assistant Producer and Post Production Consultant of Terrence Malick’s fourth film, The New World (2006) and assisted cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki on Malick’s forthcoming film The Tree of Life.  He is the founder of Kestrel Filmworks, which produced the short films Wildcatting for Wind, Roosevelt’s Forest Army, and Ridge County Requiem.    He currently resides in Austin, Texas.