PHILADELPHIA, PA — Vanishing forests, a shrinking reservoir and Philadelphia waterways buried beneath generations of development become more than environmental statistics in a new photography exhibition that asks visitors to see climate change through both evidence and human experience.
InLiquid’s “No Other Place to Go” brings together five artists whose work explores environmental change, ecological loss and the ways people perceive a natural world in flux. The exhibition runs Sept. 4 through Oct. 17 at InLiquid Gallery in the Crane Arts Building, 1400 N. American St.
Featuring Anita Allyn, Richard Boutwell, Laura Krasnow, Kaitlin Pomerantz and Emma Ressel, the exhibition approaches photography as both documentation and artistic expression. Scientific data, historical records, changing landscapes and shifting ecosystems become source material for work examining not only what is being lost, but how those changes shape memory and perception.
Curated by Katie Tackman, “No Other Place to Go” is presented in conjunction with the 20/20 Photo Festival, a citywide celebration connecting Philadelphia’s photography community through exhibitions, educational programming and a book fair.
The five artists approach the subject from strikingly different directions.
Allyn’s “Nature, Assembled” combines photography with living specimens, geological materials and museum displays to examine how people collect, classify and represent the natural world.
Boutwell turns his attention to Lake Mead in “Reclamation: Deadpool.” His photographs use the reservoir’s towering white mineral “bathtub ring” — left behind as water levels declined — as visual evidence of a water system under pressure. The series connects the reservoir’s changing landscape with historical policy decisions and the millions of people who continue to depend on its water.
Krasnow makes the physical fragility of photography part of the message in “And Then There Were None.” Created with expired Polaroid film, her images fade, distort and deteriorate as she considers the loss of forests to agriculture, urban development, mining and logging. The unstable photographs evoke landscapes that could themselves become memories.
Pomerantz brings the environmental story closer to home by examining Philadelphia’s buried creeks. Using maps, archival photographs, watermarks and text, her work considers more than 300 miles of waterways that have been reduced by more than 80% since colonial settlement. Against the backdrop of heavier rainfall and stressed sewer infrastructure, the work asks what happens when water reasserts itself in a landscape built over its former paths.
Ressel focuses on how people gradually adjust their expectations of the environment around them. Drawing on the concept of Shifting Baseline Syndrome, she creates elaborate photographic constructions inspired by museum dioramas, incorporating taxidermied animals and fabricated plant life to explore how environmental change can become normalized from one generation to the next.
Together, the works are intended to bridge the distance between knowing environmental change through numbers and experiencing its consequences through images, landscapes and memory.
Opening Night and Public Receptions
The exhibition will be part of the 20/20 Photo Festival’s opening night at Crane Arts on Thursday, Sept. 10, from 6 to 9 p.m. The evening coincides with Second Thursday, when galleries and artist studios open their doors for an evening of art programming.
Programming partner TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image will also present “Eco-Social Realism: Historic Mural Activations,” developed with Mural Arts Philadelphia. That exhibition revisits four neighborhood murals created between 1996 and 2000 and their representations of gardens, pastoral settings and landscapes connected to Pennsylvania and the Caribbean.
Event Details
- What: “No Other Place to Go,” featuring photography and related works by Anita Allyn, Richard Boutwell, Laura Krasnow, Kaitlin Pomerantz and Emma Ressel
- When: Sept. 4-Oct. 17, 2026; public receptions Thursday, Sept. 10, and Thursday, Oct. 8, from 6-9 p.m.
- Where: InLiquid Gallery at Crane Arts, 1400 N. American St., Philadelphia, PA 19122
- Cost/Tickets: RSVPs are recommended for the public receptions.
- More Info: Reception RSVP: https://luma.com/4dzzhtry
A second public reception for “No Other Place to Go” is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 8, from 6 to 9 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to RSVP at https://luma.com/4dzzhtry.
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