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  Violet Catching Firefly, Danville, VA
  ©Elijah Gowin

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  Fiona on Porch with Firefly, Danville, VA
  ©Elijah Gowin

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  Petronas Towers and Rain (horizontal), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  ©Elijah Gowin

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  Fireflies in Trees, Selangor River, Malaysia
  ©Elijah Gowin

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  Firefly Walking Marks Triptych
  ©Elijah Gowin

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  Neon Tour Boat, Trang River, Thailand
  ©Elijah Gowin

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  Firefly Trails 13
  ©Elijah Gowin

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  Fireflies in Branches, Tapi River, Bang Bai Mai, Thailand
  ©Elijah Gowin

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  Fingernails and Firefly
  ©Elijah Gowin

The Last Firefly is Elijah Gowin’s second exhibition at PGI.

Elijah Gowin (b. 1967) has been working as a photographer since 1994. He grew up in an old farmhouse in the Virginia countryside, as the grandson of a Methodist minister and the son of a photographer. In his photography, Gowin has examined his own background in themes of landscape, faith, ritual, and memory. Beginning with the 1994 release of Hymnal of Dreams, his debut series, he continues to explore the world and its complexities through various photographic series, each created using handmade techniques appropriate to the series’ approach and subject matter, from photogrammetry to cyanotype and pigment printing. In 2002, Gowin began teaching at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In 2008, he founded Tin Roof Press to publish zines and photobooks and to bring libraries and independent publishers closer together.

In recent years, Gowin’s focus has shifted from his own childhood to contemporary issues such as social and environmental changes and the problems that arise from them. For example, his series Shooting Star, Inc. consists of photographs of carnival games and portraits of young people. It looks at the fears and anxieties of young people in a world where school shootings, culture wars, and climate change have become normalized, and asks if and how they can still retain hope.

Gowin’s series The Last Firefly began with photogram-like images created using the light of fireflies caught by Gowin’s daughters. During the first year of the project, Gowin created numerous photograms to record the trails of wild fireflies in their environment. These images were “abstract at first, but seemed more and more as if I were capturing coded messages (…) They came to look like stars floating in the blackness of space, bright and infinitely large.

During his research, Gowin learned how the decline in firefly populations was linked to changes in ecosystems. He expanded his photography beyond the U.S. to Thailand and Malaysia, witnessing firsthand how global and local shifts in the human world can alter environments.

The Last Firefly is thus about two distinct but interrelated landscapes: that of the human, social landscape and that of the fireflies. Gowin: “It is this complex intertwining of nature and technology, and the many worlds we inhabit at once, that I hope to show in these photographs.”

The exhibition consists of approximately 32 archival pigment prints.

English translation by Robert Zetzsche

As I learned more about the ecology and the changing landscape effecting the decline of firefly populations around the world, I developed different techniques for photographing each unique environment. In Malaysia, where fireflies collect in mangrove trees near tidal rivers, they are best approached by boat in total darkness. By synchronizing my trips to the seasons, lunar cycle, and the short life cycle of the firefly, I could photograph with little to no moonlight, which might otherwise overpower the firefly flashing. The best moments occurred when the boat engine stopped, allowing small night sounds to come forward in the darkness: the soft rowing of water, the quiet voices speak- ing a melodic language. In Thailand, my aging eyes were sometimes aided by my daughter Fiona, whose younger and sharper vision could spot the fragile firefly pulses in the trees and help guide my camera. Days later I would have similar yet contrasting difficulties orienting myself in the middle of a bustling city of millions of people, who are drawn to the lights of endless shining mega malls. It is this complex intertwining of nature and technology and the many worlds we inhabit at once that I hope to show in these photographs.

Elijah Gowin

Elijah Gowin

Born in Dayton, Ohio in 1967 and received his MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico in 1997. Presently, he is a Professor in the Department of Media, Art and Design at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where he directs photographic studies. 

He founded Tin Roof Press to publish his books on art and photography including Maggie in 2009 and his monograph Of Falling and Floating in 2011. His awards include the John S. Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 as well as grants from the Charlotte Street Foundation and the Puffin Foundation. His photographs are in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Center for Creative Photography, among others.