Within the Bittersweet is a dark, pastoral narrative about raising children amid concerns about the impacts of climate change and environmental contamination. All the photographs in the exhibition were taken in and around Grant’s home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where dense vegetation and natural beauty intersect with industrial and fossil-fuel facilities that dot the region. These industries spread noxious particulates and hazardous toxins across the terrain and into the air, water, and our bodies.

In Grant’s artwork, the dark realities of the landscape we live in are interlaced with representations of her deep love for her children and the physical world around them—a living tapestry of incredible complexity that her daughters are just coming to know. The climate crisis will undoubtedly reshape the world they inherit, and through these photographs Grant negotiates the beauty and heartbreak of raising them on a wondrous planet amid such rapid and impactful change.

Allison Grant is an artist, writer, curator, and assistant professor of photography at the University of Alabama. Her artworks have been widely exhibited. She holds an MFA from Columbia College Chicago and BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design.