"A Photographic Prairie Trilogy" by Kyler Zeleny

Photographer, educator, and writer Kyler Zeleny traces a decade-long exploration of the Canadian Prairies through his trilogy—Out West (2014), Crown Ditch & The Prairie Castle (2020), and the culminating Bury Me in the Back Forty (2025). Centering on his hometown of Mundare, Alberta—a Ukrainian-settler community in transition—the talk considers how photographs and interwoven texts can honor complexity without nostalgia or caricature on the Canadian Prairies.

With a special focus on Bury Me in the Back Forty, Zeleny foregrounds themes of deviance and conformity, joy and tragedy, and the ethics of representing one’s own “homeplace.” He reflects on how Ukrainian prairie identities are negotiated across generations—what is carried forward, what is let go—and how belonging is inscribed in everyday life and landscape. Drawing from stories behind specific images and sequences across all three books, Zeleny offers a nuanced view of contemporary prairie life and the small-town futures being imagined in real time.

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Host or Publisher Kule Folklore Centre