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Alexander Heilner

Animation / Video / Film, Photography, Sculpture / Installation, Visual / Media

Awards Received

Individual Artist

2018

Alexander Heilner uses photography and moving images to reveal the shifting relationships between the natural and human-built elements of our world. In 2012, he won the prestigious Baker Artist Award.

About the Artist

Alexander Heilner is a multi-disciplinary artist and photographer whose work inhabits both fine art and documentary initiatives as he investigates the relationships between artificial and natural elements within the environment, and within our culture. A winner of the prestigious Baker Artist Prize, Alex has exhibited, screened, and performed his work nationally and internationally, Photography festivals including Pingyao, Sienna, and Daegu have featured his aerial photography, and he has been awarded numerous grants and commissions in support of his ongoing environmental projects.   Alex is presently engaged in two long-term endeavors which document radical shifts in our physical and social landscapes due to global warming. Draining the Colorado catalogs the diminishment of water throughout the Colorado River Basin; while The New Arctic examines the imminent and rapid changes occurring in Arctic coastal communities. For over a decade, Alex has also been photographing the elaborate campsites that serve as “home” for citizens of Black Rock City, the temporary desert metropolis built each summer for Burning Man.   Alex’ editorial and fine art work have been featured in National Geographic, The Guardian, Politico, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Details; myriad websites including Wired, Lenscratch, Ain’t-Bad, Fraction, Juxtapoz, and Design Taxi; and he has produced numerous photo essays for public radio’s Marketplace. Nearly 200 of Alex’ photographs are featured in the Encyclopedia of New York City, published in 2010. Alex was commissioned by Johns Hopkins Hospital to create digital collages which are featured throughout its complex and Baltimore magazine named him the city’s best photographer in 2012.   Alex earned his B.A. at Princeton University and his M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He has been teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art since 2003, and served as the College’s Associate Dean for Design and Media Studies from 2011 to 2018.

Alexander Heilner website View Website

Featured Work

Photos

Lake Mead on May 23, 2021. Two days later, the lake fell below 1,075 feet mean elevation, triggering mandatory cuts to water allocations in 2022. The reservoir has since continued to drop, and the federal Drought Contingency Plan has been activated, meaning many farms in Arizona stopped receiving their historic water allotments beginning in 2022.
As Lake Powell's water level drops, side canyons are draining and drying. Scorup Canyon is now the northernmost side canyon that can still be navigated - for a short distance - by a motorboat. As of autumn 2022, the Colorado River flowed into the reservoir just a couple river-miles north of this point.
The water level at Lake Powell has been dropping for most of the past two decades. All but three of the major boat ramps around the enormous lake are well out of the water as of 2022. Hite North Marina was one of the first to become unusable many years ago. The lake has receded so far that Hite now faces a narrow strip of the Colorado River, rather than the reservoir which used to lap at its boat ramp.
It's hard to put into perspective what it means for Lake Powell to have dropped 170 feet in 20 years (and 50 feet in just one year!) But there are many cliff walls like this one, which tell the story.
Though dead, and completely submerged in the lake for more than 4 decades, these trees have remained standing, as if willing themselves to remain at their posts until the water eventually receded. There are many groves like this throughout Glen Canyon. This one re-emerged suddenly, as the lake level dropped 50 feet between 2021 and 2022.
Henderson, Nevada, along with much of the Las Vegas area, continues to add new housing at a rapid pace despite critically low water levels in the region’s reservoirs.