Installation view, Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene, May 22, 2026 – September 13, 2026, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E.G. Schempf, 2026.
“Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene” assembles contemporary work by 43 photo-based artists from around the globe. Grouped into four major sections, the exhibition packages both consequences and considerations.
Anthropocene refers to the term that scientists proposed in 2000, recognizing a new geological era where humanity’s activity created lasting environmental and climatological impact. “Second Nature” shows the consequences of decisions, action, and inaction, a baton passed collectively between generations. Frankly, the exhibit makes it hard to imagine Earth before humans arrived.
The exhibition is a conversation starter. Patrons contemplating “Second Nature” may experience wonder, alarm, guilt, outrage, or even disassociation, apathy or indifference. Choose your own adventure. Evidence of the planet’s actual and imagined transformation is associated with human-anchored issues such as colonialism, forced climate migration, and socio-environmental trauma. If nothing else, “Second Nature’s” documentation presents moments and scenes that most of us will never witness firsthand.
From the series Drowning World: Submerged Portraits, Gideon Mendel’s image Anchalee Koyama depicts a woman standing with a young child in her arms as flood waters rise to her waist in Bangkok, Thailand. A companion photograph of Jeff and Stacey Waters, who are dressed in waders and posed before their flooded home in Surrey, United Kingdom, illustrates how similar circumstances affect lives regardless of geography, social status or economic class.
Tunisian artist Mouna Karray’s photographs of anonymous individuals wrapped in white sheets and posed against dramatic landscapes address isolation and obscurity. Without the person posed, the scenery could appear on a postcard or in a film. Her series No One Will Talk About Us draws attention to how mining extracts resources and benefits investors. Who considers the value and values of the people who remain in their ravaged homeland?
All images: Installation view, Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene, May 22, 2026 – September 13, 2026, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E.G. Schempf, 2026.
Andrew Esiebo’s towering inkjet print Untitled presents a scene of boys playing football on dirt, a spirited, relatable moment unfolding beneath a gigantic concrete overpass, urbanism writ large.
For consideration, the section “Envisioning Tomorrow” ponders the future of society within a changing environment in pragmatic and fantastical ways. Joiri Minaya centers female and Indigenous bodies in conversations about the future. Visions for humanity and its track record aren’t defined by or limited to the money, technology or sociocultural assertions of men.
With Container #2 set in a lush forest, Minaya’s self-portrait displays her in a head-to-toe patterned bodysuit that resembles a protective tropical skin and vibrant chrysalis during metamorphosis. Her identity as an Afro-Latina woman is hidden and camouflaged, circumventing social projections of sexuality and exoticism assigned to women by colonizers endemic to her native Dominican Republic and other Caribbean nations.
Cara Romero’s Evolvers introduces a visual clash of boys in feathered headdresses and sunglasses dashing across a “forest” of desert windmills that could exist in an Indigenous cyberpunk novel.
“Second Nature” assembles must-see works ranging from toxic sites to imagined futurism, from Robert Kautuk’s image of a traditional walrus hunt captured by a drone to Noémie Goudal’s constructed fragments of nature through picture-in-picture imagery exploring the deep time of geology. The exhibit tethers us in the past and present of humanity’s detritus and decisions to manipulate nature, but it also creates space for contemplation, conversation and action to shape what may come next.
“Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene” continues at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd., through Sept. 13. Hours 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday. For more information 816.753.5784 or www.kemperart.org.
