An Urban Wild: A Photographic Exploration of the Silver Maple Forest and the Alewife Reservation by Parrish Dobson

It's rare that you can reach wilderness by subway, but the state's Alewife Reservation is just such a rarity. Inner-city schoolchildren come here to learn about nature. Bordering the reservation is a Silver Maple Forest which is partly protected because some of it lies within the Reservation. But another beautiful section, often called the "Belmont Uplands", may be developed with 299 apartments. Development would shrink this small bit of  "urban wild" and would threaten wildlife throughout the reservation by diminishing the size and the variety of contiguous habitats.  Dobson's photographs look at the surprising beauty of this sliver of conserved land and the threatened areas.  Her photographs help us see the  importance and mystery of these wild areas along the margins of urban sprawl. 

Parrish Dobson has been photographing landscape in New England, Europe, and parts of the American West for over 25 years. She lives in Belmont and teaches photography at the Buckingham Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge.

Sales of the photographs in this exhibit will benefit the Land Acquisition Fund of the Belmont Citizens Forum.  For more information, please contact info@belmontcitizensforum.org.