Carver County Historical Society

The Unchosen Ones: Portraits of an American Pastoral featuring archival quality photographic prints by R. J. Kern will open on November 22nd.

R. J. Kern is an American artist whose work investigates ideas of home, ancestry, and a sense of place. His portraits focus on intimate, interdependent relationships of people, animals, and landscape as a means of exploring how ancestry shapes identity and how myth intertwines with personal history.

The Unchosen Ones: Portraits of an American Pastoral, features photographs by Kern of kids and teens at county fairs across Minnesota, selecting those who had not won ribbons. Each fair contestant is photographed with their hardworking show animal. The initial photographs are from 2016 and then he returned to photograph the participants and their current show animal in 2020.

Join us from November 22 to January 10, 2025 to see these stunning photographs and learn more about the participants in this exhibition. Admission is free.

  The exhibit will be open Monday through Friday 9 to 4:30 and on Saturdays from 9-2pm.