Sept. 11 – Oct. 31, 2026
The Unchosen Ones video links
In 2016, Kern traveled the state going to as many county fairs as he could, creating formal portraits of 4-H members and their animals. He intentionally focused on those children that didn’t win. Four years later, during 2020, Kern revisited these same young people on their home turf, literally on their farms, photographing and interviewing in their pastures and barns to capture the changes and lessons learned over a four-year time span.
Kern asked what they had carried forward from their previous experience. What were their thoughts, their advice, their dreams and their goals for the future? How do they fit in future agricultural America?
“Not being chosen for something has a valuable upside,” notes Kern. “As I explored these young people’s doubts, fears, and frustrations, I was heartened to learn of their ability to overcome adversity and rise to a challenge, whether it was self-imposed or one that life threw at them.”
In The Unchosen Ones, the formal qualities of Kern’s lighting and setting capture his young subjects’ dignity and wisdom, revealing self-directed dedication in some, and in others the pressures of traditions imposed upon them. The result are images that not only tap into the mindset of America’s agricultural youth, but also depict a way of life fast disappearing in modern American, the small family farm.