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 The Dacotah Prairie Museum presented a new photography exhibit highlighting Michael A. Shapiro, Sioux Falls artist. The exhibit opened on August 2nd and ran through September 15, 2005.
Michael began his professional career in Sioux City, Iowa and worked as a professional photographer when he arrived in Sioux Falls in 1973. Shapiro’s first documentary project was on the Pine Ridge reservation of South Dakota. Since then, he has photographed the Inuit people of northern Canada and the Rodeo cowboys of the Midwest and Northern Plains. He has featured story photos and candid portraits of small towns and major cities in both the United States and Europe.
This display of black and white photographs were among many taken on three trips to the Arctic over a period of 5 years. During these trips, Michael lived with several Inuit families as he experienced first hand the modern day culture based on the traditions of a hardy and practical people.
Shapiro says, “The Inuit live so far away from the rest of the world that our political and social problems hardly matter to them at all. They are, spiritually, independent of both the western and eastern cultures. They are on the fringes of society.”
 The photographs in the display reveal family life, celebrations, the villages, landscape, pets, work and play of this unique group of people. It illustrates the passage of time from the bitter chill of the winter season at the three day Christmas celebration to the dawning of hope at the festival rite of Spring. The character captured in the smooth skinned babies, the lines of the weathered faces of the elders, even the ready playfulness of the sled dogs, invites us into their story.
As the photographer points out “I am not trying to create, from scratch, an exquisite piece of art, but rather I’m trying to figure out what the story is by documenting the events and searching for connections and meaning.
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