Roberto Dutesco: The Wild Horses of Sable Island
The Museum of Natural History is pleased to present the Canadian Premiere of Roberto Dutesco: The Wild Horses of Sable Island. This exhibit spans 20 years of iconic photography of the wild horses from Canada’s beloved Sable Island. The exhibit is on view 6 June until 19 October 2014.
Public Opening Event
Be the first to see Roberto Dutesco: The Wild Horses of Sable Island. Meet Roberto Dutesco, see this beautiful exhibit and learn about this amazing Island. Thursday June 5, 7:30pm.
Sable Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, located at 43.933 Latitude and 60.007 Longitude is the site of over 475 shipwrecks since the early seventeenth century. For hundreds of years, Sable Island was seen as a fearful place: the “Graveyard of the Atlantic. Never permanently settled, Sable Island has seen temporary occupation by shipwrecked sailors, transported convicts, pirates and wreckers. The first recorded shipwreck was of one of Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s ships in 1583.
The wild horses, named for the island they inhabit, are now the only terrestrial mammals on Sable Island. Abandoned there by sailors long ago or cast ashore from wrecks on the many sandbars that surround the island, this feral herd has managed to thrive in an austere, unforgiving environment that offers not a single sheltering tree and just sea grass and rainwater ponds for sustenance.
“Sable Island exists today as it always has, mysterious and secluded, surrounded by fog, lost in time, waiting to reveal its secrets and memories. Every grain of sand and every wave has its own story. According to the latest data, more than five hundred ships have found their resting place in the sandbanks of Sable Island. I attempted to photograph the stories of what is future and what is past; what is hidden and what is lost beneath the dunes, ocean and time; of the horses and their stories they silently hold, each with its own lifespan and existence, each with its own measure of time.“– Roberto Dutesco
Roberto Dutesco is a New York based photographer, poet and film-maker. Romanian born, he studied Photography in Montreal, where he moved when still a teenager. Dutesco soon became a sought-after fashion photographer. With the spirit of a globe-trotter, he portrayed prominent personalities of our times, such as Pierre Trudeau, the Dalai Lama and Mikhail Gorbachev.
After moving to New York in the early nineties, he devoted much of his time to several now completed projects: “The Wild Horses of Sable Island”, “The American Sandscape”, “Rocks and Things”, “Flowers & Dreams”, “Brincusi - The Endless Column”, “The Human Landscape”, “Waters” “The 14th Dalai Lama” and the poetry book “Ethereal Reflections.” Roberto’s travels have taken him through more than sixty countries and left him with a fascination for this “One World” in which we all live and share.
His short films “Times Square” and “Sable Horses” have been screened and favorably reviewed in several film festivals across the U.S., culminating with the multiple award winning documentary “Chasing Wild Horses” - a CBC / Arcadia Production. The “Sable Island Journey” has been his main focus and dedication. Since 1994 his efforts to document and showcase The Wild Horses of Sable Island have played favorably in the conservation and protection of Sable Island.
“LOVE”
Sable Island, Nova Scotia
From the Wild Horses of Sable Island Gallery
©Roberto Dutesco
1994