Snow Piles of the Upper Mississippi Closing Event

The Winona County History Center and Art of the Rural are pleased to present a closing event, meal, and performance for the Snow Piles of the Upper Mississippi exhibition, on Friday, March 8, from 6:00 - 7:30pm. This event is free and everyone is welcome.

From 6:00 - 7:00pm, visitors can enjoy hotdish and snow cones while having their pictures taken at the Snow Pile Photo Booth by Mary Farrell. From 7:00 - 7:30pm, Mike Munson and Matthew Fluharty will share F20E59F75D0240D24096FA67B0476CA4 (Snow Seance), a sound installation and improvised musical performance.

Snow Piles of the Upper Mississippi is an ongoing project focused on the connected experiences of water, land, and community.

Begun in January 2019, this work centers on a large, ever-expanding photographic archive of contemporary snow piles. This project reclaims the snow pile as an element of local architecture, art, history, and infrastructure – an everyday creation through which to consider cultural and ecological change and to see familiar landscapes in a new light.

The exhibition also features stereograph images from the Archive of the Winona County Historical Society, taken by George I. Vance and published by Elmer and Tenney (18 Center Street, Winona). These images document the “Snow Winter” of October 1880 – April 1881, the most severe winter in the history of this region, with record-setting snow accumulations that blockaded railroads, buried homes and farms, and brought business to a standstill.

All proceeds from the sale of the Snow Piles photographs support intercultural exchange between Prairie Island Indian Community and the Winona region.

The Winona County History Center is open daily from 10:00am - 4:00pm at 160 Johnson Street in downtown Winona. Call 507-454-2723 or visit winonahistory.org to find out more.