This Other Eden: Stage Fort Park, Photographs by Anne Rearick
Vendor: Cape Ann Museum Store
Enjoy the accompanying catalog to the exhibition This Other Eden, Photographs by Anne Rearick on view at the Cape Ann Museum November 14, 2026 – March 21, 2027.
“Why would anyone allow me to photograph them during such precarious times? Yet nearly everyone I asked said yes,” Rearick writes. “I was humbled and deeply moved by the trust extended to me by families from Syria, Puerto Rico, Palestine, the Dominican Republic, Türkiye, Afghanistan, and Guatemala, among so many others.”
The exhibition takes its title from John of Gaunt’s description of England as “this other Eden” in Shakespeare’s “Richard II.”
“Looking at Stage Fort Park today, Gaunt’s words take on a renewed, vital force,” Rearick writes. “It stands as our own ‘other Eden,’ a sanctuary that preserves our shared humanity in uncertain times. These photographs are my love letter to a place that belongs to us all.”
In addition to Rearick’s essay, the fully illustrated catalog features an essay by John Jacob, McEvoy Family Senior Curator of Photography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery, positioning Rearick’s work within the tradition of 20th-century documentary photography. The catalog also includes an overview of the history of Stage Fort Park by Martha Oaks, Henrietta Gates and Heaton Robertson Chief Curator at the Cape Ann Museum.
Spanning more than 60 acres of sandy beaches, granite outcroppings, and open green space, Stage Fort Park has been owned by the City of Gloucester and open to the public since 1898. When advocating for its purchase, city officials noted that the park would be “thoroughly appreciated by every man, woman, and child in this city, as well as the many who come among us for a summer home.” Over the decades, the park has hosted circuses, Wild West shows, civic celebrations, and cultural festivals.
About the Photographer: A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and longtime Gloucester resident, Rearick teaches photography at the Cambridge School of Weston and is the author of six monographs. Although she has lived in Gloucester for nearly 30 years, her documentary work has largely taken her elsewhere, with extended projects on amateur boxing, the French Basque Country, and post-Apartheid South Africa.
Available to pick up or for purchase at the Museum Store on 27 Pleasant Street.
Softcover, 140 pages, 9.375 x .375 x 11", 65 images and Black & White Photographs
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