Press Release
Margery Stein Schab’s exhibition, Fracking America, is about the people, towns, farms, and empty lands in one remote, rural Pennsylvania County impacted by fracking. Hydraulic fracturing occurs throughout our country. The economic and social effects of this are long lasting. Margery has made numerous trips to this area and familiarized herself with the community.
She eliminated all proper names of people and places. The titles of the photographs are mostly from the sitters themselves and how they want to be identified. They were very excited to participate in this way.
The exhibition will be at the Soho Photo Gallery, 539 W. 23rd Street, NYC, 1001.
October 7-November 1, 2026. Wednesday-Sunday 12:00-6:00 PM
Fracking America
I have seen.
the landscape
the buildings
the churches
the people,
who live in this remote,
isolated, rooted place
in rural Pennsylvania.
Where the little guy dreams
about thriving family farms
in the surrounding countryside.
But
Beneath the flowing hills,
the wild fauna and aging structures
is the rich Marcellus shale with its pipes
horizontal ones for miles,
vertical ones for more than a mile.
Pipes implanted by machinery
penetrating, pounding deep into the earth.
Pipes on top of each other
or next to each other
harvesting natural gas micro droplets
from the graves of life that departed
more than a millennia ago.
Fracking needs lots of water.
Around 14 million gallons per well.
Trucks bring in water too
along with sand from the Midwest.
Some of it flows back to the surface
laced with chemicals, sand, salts
and debris from the bowels of the earth.
All of it becomes poisoned by fracking.
Millions of gallons of fracked
flowback water needs to be stored
in large tanks
or diluted or reused
or quietly poured
on country roads.
The sky is not immune.
Flares of methane are released
into the air we all breathe.
Testing is needed
for the soil,
for the water,
for the air,
Can we eat what is grown on the family farms atop the rich Marcellus shale?
Not sure
Will there be Data Centers smothering
the empty fields and forests?
Possibly
This is real.
Margery Stein Schab