In 1998 the High commissioned California-based photographer Richard Misrach to create a body of work as part of its Picturing the South series. Misrach chose to study the ecological degradation of a passage of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans—an area where a number of petrochemical industries are based that is sometimes referred to as Cancer Alley. These photographs challenge viewers with environmental and political concerns while seducing them with evocative and lyrically beautiful large-scale prints. Here Misrach captures a flooded hazardous waste containment site that is as atmospheric as it is troubling.