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HEAR ME CRY See more on page 62. artishell.com IG: @demongab
IN THIS ISSUE... 10 RESOURCES WE LOVE By Alan Bulley 13 THE BIPOC PHOTO MENTORSHIP PROGRAM By Heather Morton 17
KC ADAMS PERCEPTION
20 ALEX JACOBS-BLUM HOME IS CALLING By Laurence Butet-Roch 26 BLURRED LINES: A conversation between photographers JACKIE DIVES & KATE SCHNEIDER By Rita Godlevskis 34 A MBER BRACKEN A WITNESS WITH A CAMERA By Laurence Butet-Roch 38 A N ETHICAL PHOTOGRAPHY PRACTICE By Danielle Khan Da Silva 41 IMAGINING AN ARCHIVE OF CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM By Gabrielle Moser 44 CAROLE CONDÉ + KARL BEVERIDGE An interview by Ingrid Forster 51 THE GALLERY Submissions by our community
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PHOTOGRAPHY + ACTIVISM AS I WRITE, the U.S. Supreme Court severely
Photo by Cole Breiland
restricted the reproductive rights of Americans. The reversal of Roe v. Wade likely foreshadows a reappraisal of a number of other rulings that affect such issues as same-sex relationships or access to contraceptives. This event is one of many in a long list that has galvanized the public internationally and is mediated through the lenses of photographers.
“We must be more assertive, tricky, and thoughtful with our visual atmosphere.” — Alexis Boylan
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I often consider the call by art historian Alexis Boylan to become “visual activists.” She tells us that “we must reject passivity and mere consumption” of images to “be more assertive, tricky, and thoughtful with our visual atmosphere.” This issue of photoED explores how we, as Canadian photographers, might get there, acknowledging the tenuous relationship between photography and activism. Documentary photography, while passionate about redressing the injustices captured, remains wary of adopting a radical position, lest it be seen as partisan. Amber Bracken, Jackie Dives, and Kate Schneider share their thoughts on navigating their role as witnesses and their desire for social change, while Danielle Da Silva, founder of Photographers Without Borders, looks at ethics.
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Artistic practices have also played a key role in changing our social landscape. Consider the eloquent work of Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, who were awarded the 2022 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for their “socially engaged and politically grounded” approach; Alex JacobsBlum’s evolving practice through which she answers her ancestors’ call to advocate for her homelands; as well as KC Adams’s billboard provocations. There are also photographic approaches that seldom register as “activism” but quietly participate in reshaping our visual atmosphere. Here, we turned to Gabrielle Moser’s reading of the contributions of The Clarion, a Black-owned newspaper published in Nova Scotia at a time marked by the civil rights activism of Viola Desmond, whose portrait now appears on our 10-dollar bills. Let that bright purple banknote be a constant reminder that we need to defend our rights. Your issue curator, Laurence Butet-Roch lbrphoto.ca IG: @lbutetroch
MAGAZINE FALL 2022 ISSUE #65 ISSN 1708-282X EDITOR/PUBLISHER ART DIRECTOR CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
COPY EDITOR
Rita Godlevskis /rita@photoed.ca Ruth Alves Alan Bulley Laurence Butet-Roch Ingrid Forster Rita Godlevskis Danielle Khan Da Silva Heather Morton Gabrielle Moser Deborah Cooper
COVER IMAGE BY Kate Schneider
This issue was made possible with the assistance of the Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Government of Canada.
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ACTIVISM EDUCATION A few resources we recommend to get you inspired and considering photography + activism from different angles BY ALAN BULLEY
THE CRUEL RADIANCE: PHOTOGRAPHY AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
IMAGINING RESISTANCE: VISUAL CULTURE AND ACTIVISM IN CANADA
By Susie Linfield
Edited by J. Keri Cronin and Kirsty Robertson
Documenting suffering raises hard ethical and political questions for photographers and viewers. Journalism professor Susie Linfield works through some of these questions in three steps: by responding to critics of photography as a documentary medium; by examining ideas of human rights in the context of photographing violence, from the Holocaust to Abu Ghraib; and finally, by anchoring her discussion in the practices of three noted war photographers. We must ask ourselves: Are there photographs that should never be made? And if they are made, how should we respond? 2012, 344 pages $25.00 Paperback / $20.00 Kobo e-book www.chapters.indigo.ca
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This collection of essays contains a wealth of careful reflection on the use of visual art in the service of activism in Canada. From John and Yoko’s “bed-ins” for peace in Montreal and Toronto in the late 1960s, up to social, racial, and economic issues of the 2000s, the volume covers our evolving context well. And, although intended for an academic audience, the presentations are always accessible and the Canadian case studies are both fascinating and helpful. Readers will learn a lot about when art was an effective means of protest and when it was not … and why. 2011, 294 pages $31.99 Paperback Wilfrid Laurier University Press
ONLINE RESOURCES There is no shortage of online resources when it comes to activism! The Photo Bill of Rights aims to change the industry by encouraging photographers to reflect on their practice and commit themselves to an ethical code. To challenge and help you sharpen your thinking, the Photo Ethics Podcast presents interviews and discussions on topics from environment to empathy, and everything in between. Photo Bill of Rights: www.photobillofrights.com The Photo Ethics Podcast: www.photoethics.org/podcast
GORDON PARKS The Flávio Story + A Choice of Weapons A pioneer in many respects, Gordon Parks was the first African American to photograph for Life and Vogue magazines and to direct a major Hollywood movie, The Learning Tree. The publication of Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story gives an in-depth account of a 1961 Life photoessay documenting poverty in Brazil and Parks’s years-long work on behalf of a Brazilian boy, his family, and their community. Gordon Parks died in 2006, but his reputation both for involved photojournalism and social action is legendary. The 2021 movie biography A Choice of Weapons is an excellent introduction to the man’s life and work.
Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story 2018, 304 pages €58 Hardback, with free shipping Steidl A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks Directed by John Maggio, 2021, HBO Documentary Films Available in Canada on Crave
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Plenty has been written about the toll the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and anti-Black racism have taken on Toronto’s Black residents this year. But a close look shows communities that are creating, resisting and thriving despite it all.
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Mentor SURENDRA LAWOTI + mentee JOEL RODRIGUEZ navigate documentary photography storytelling BY HEATHER MORTON
From the Certified Organic project. Pears are one of the only fruits that must be picked unripe and are allowed to ripen off the tree.
Left, Joel Rodriguez and, right Surendra Lawoti.
THE BIPOC PHOTO MENTORSHIP PROGRAM is just over two years old and, in that time, we have facilitated over 200 mentorship opportunities with almost 100 mentors from various areas of the photo industry and from all over the world. One of our most exciting initiatives was a collaboration with Toronto-based organization Gallery 44. During this program, mentee Joel Rodriguez was matched with mentor Surendra Lawoti and they spent three months working together on the production of Joel’s documentary project Certified Organic, an exploration of food production and regenerative agriculture in Canada. Both Joel and Surendra are working from an activist perspective and, though they both use a documentary approach, their practices are unique.
Joel relates that the mentorship opportunity came at the perfect time in his process. “My mentor Surendra Lawoti and I spoke at great length about various approaches I could take. His experience with large format photography really opened my eyes to new directions in the genre. Surendra helped me deconstruct my compositional choices and really pushed me to embrace the nuances that can be accentuated within a frame. I quickly learned that good critique most commonly poses more questions rather than direct assumptions.” photo ED 13
Indeed, Surendra and Joel were a great match, as they share a common interest in documenting people in a way that Surendra describes as “incorporating aspects of fragility, strength, and poise that elevates the people in photographic representation.” Surendra describes his approach to mentorship; “One of the things I did as part of the mentorship was show Joel my series This Country Is Yours, explaining the context of the work and the process.” Questions of ethics and responsibilities are complicated and nuanced in documentary work, especially when the photographer is working from an activism angle. Intention and outcome were top of mind during this mentorship. Joel frames his practice: “Our way of seeing the world is ultimately based on our knowledge of it, and I believe social and political change can stem from challenging our perception of the world around us.” In Surendra’s case, he uses portraiture to focus on civil rights activists and movements in Nepal. The concepts of dignity and relationship to place is important in his work: “Through portraits of activists, I wanted to encapsulate the idea of negotiating historic injustices and internalizing a place of rightful dignity in one’s country,” he says. Through his mentorship with Surendra, Joel realized that his aim was also to highlight the personal and the subjective experiences of migrant workers. He says, “Documentary photography is a practice that requires a lot from you. You are constantly grappling with the responsibility of taking someone’s photograph, a task which should never be taken lightly. Our conversations pushed me to further explore the pursuit behind the images I make.” Surendra adds, “During the interaction, I [talked] about how I am transparent with my subjects about the context of the work, the scope of the work, and ways the work could be disseminated. My photographic interaction was an act of solidarity for our common aspirations.” Without question, mentorships can be personally transformative; Joel says, “As I continue to embark on my visual storytelling journey, I feel a sense of relief knowing that there exists a pool of resources to help further develop one’s artistic practice.” For more information, and to join the program, please visit www.bipocphotomentorship.com and follow us on Instagram: @bipocphotomentorship 14 photo ED
Certified Organic is a multimedia documentary project that explores the organic food production sector in Canada. According to Employment and Social Development Canada, “Approximately 50,000 to 60,000 foreign agricultural workers come to work in Canada each year.” Joel Rodriguez worked alongside, Casimiro, Luis, Jahir, Paulinho, and Emiliano, Mexican migrant workers on a farm in Owen Sound, Ontario in 2021.
ABOVE: Casimiro, Emiliano, Luis and Jahir process squash in a greenhouse. LEFT: Cows are transferred to a new pasture during a pasture rotation. In a rotational grazing system, cows enter a pasture, graze it down 2-3 inches, and are then moved to another pasture.
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KC ADAMS
PERCEPTION photo ED 17
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THE GALLERY SUBMISSIONS BY OUR READERS
OLIVER FLECKNELL THE WATCHERS Fredericton, NB “ Change is in the air; you can smell it from behind your mask. Children are pushing politics, the government is selling weed, winter is getting warmer while summer’s heat is killing the elderly. The eternal flame now burns in the Amazon, California, and British Columbia. Lethal flooding is common around the world. But climate change is fake news. Change is coming but the super-rich resist, rebelling against the science, profiting on the laziness of humans, putting their faith in the dollars they’ve stashed on the islands. Like pirates, they stash their stolen bounty, while their workers visit food banks. The children skip school on Fridays, you won’t find them at the mall though. They’re in the streets. They’re at the legislatures. They’re trying to teach science to the clueless politicians who only listen to the super-rich pirates that need bailout money in a “crisis.” Little do they know, not even the super-rich will survive the end of the human era. These scientists, these activists/rebels/protesters/watchers, are the only true visionaries of our future. Their intentions are pure. Their future is unwritten.”
IG: @oliverflecknell
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HENRY VANDERSPEK Toronto, ON
EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE
One of my running routes this year took me past a post that was regularly
lockdowns, I was inspired by many who used their creativity to express hope,
updated with fresh artwork.They were all signed by someone known as “Mrs.
solidarity and love to those around them.
D”. My thanks to “Mrs. D” for taking the time to share her art for all to see.
“ While 2020 brought a great deal of hardship with the COVID pandemic and
You shared love with many and it made a difference! (Woodfield Road, near Here are a few of the creative interventions that some members of my neighbourhood publically displayed. Where we typically consider homemade signage as speaking out against something negative, these same tools in caring peoples hands help us see the world with fresh eyes, and to free us from negative perspectives that may understandably set in due to societal stress’”.
Wapole Avenue in East York)
Henry VanderSpek is a Toronto-based photographer specialising in compassionately documenting whatever is happening on the street and in the community. From North America and Europe to the dusty roads of rural East Africa, he finds joy in capturing vibrant local atmosphere and drawing the viewer to celebrate the many ways that people live a full life. Henry’s images have been published on TheGlobeandMail.com, BlogTO, CTV Ottawa, Vice Canada, CNN.com and he has appeared to speak about his various projects on numerous media outlets including CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, and CBC Here and Now.
www.culturesnap.ca Facebook: @CultureSnapPhotography Instagram: @culturesnap Twitter: @culture_snap
GABRIELLE DE MONTMOLLIN Welland, ON
HEAR ME CRY “ Still life photography is a genre I like to stretch beyond its traditions. This is a series, where I present arrangements of attractive objects set against backgrounds of provocative or disturbing images, sourced from my daily electronic newsfeed. I want people to see that if they have beauty in their lives they are very lucky and privileged, but they should never forget about what is happening in the background. I highlight specific horrors so as not to allow them to be forgotten as they’re replaced by more unsettling images in the unending ‘disposable information’ that we experience, yet ignore, everyday.”
www.artishell.com IG: @demongab
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SID NAIDU Scarborough, ON
SCARBOROUGH MADE
Canadian Hip Hop Artist, Maestro Fresh Wes, 2019.
Scarborough Made at Nuit Blanche Toronto, 2019.
SCARBOROUGH MADE is a social impact documentary project we developed to champion Toronto’s East, and through this project, storytelling became our activism. This project was our realization that we have a crucial role to play in sharing the narratives of the communities. For too long, our neighbourhoods have been labelled ‘disadvantaged’ and lacked resources and opportunities that could improve our socioeconomic conditions. It began from a vision to capture stories in our neighbourhood, and lead to something so much more significant for the community.
Along with my fellow co-founder, Alex Narvaez, we’ve documented 34+ stories and developed three public art installations. Scarborough is an area rich in diversity as an arrival suburb, home to people from all around the world. Growing up here, we often felt misrepresented in how traditional media outlets depicted our neighbourhoods. Narratives of culture and community had been missing in mainstream media. We wanted to shift the negative perception of how our communities were being portrayed, so we decided to pick up the camera to document and share the stories that could highlight the everyday heroes and cultural changemakers of Scarborough.
Scarborough Made as part of BigArtTO, 2021.
We documented stories of cultural instigators like Maestro Fresh Wes, Canadian Hip Hop Pioneer and Hall of Famer who penned his hit song in our local mall and Scarborough’s own Randell Adjei - Ontario’s first poet laureate. We documented stories of everyday heroes like the late Doris Sneddon, a 104-year-old resident who watched the neighbourhood evolve over the years, and Rookz, who went from being homeless to becoming a successful entrepreneur supporting others. We developed public art installations to engage the community and foster the arts here. We wanted people to see and celebrate people like themselves through large-scale portraits within civic spaces.
What started as us wanting to document and share positive stories, grew to mentorship of local youth to become storytellers for their own neighbourhoods. We now have support for a second year of production with the City of Toronto, and our growing team is working on a new project under the theme of “City of Industry”.
Scarborough Made as part of ArtworxTO, Toronto’s year of public art, 2021 - 2022.
Growing up in Scarborough, there was a lack of opportunities for pursuing the arts or photography. It now feels like our work has come full circle. Championing storytelling in underserved spaces was our form of activism, to change the way people saw our community and to provide the next generation with the tools that could help them succeed as creators gave us a strong purpose, a reason to create, and amplification of new narratives.
Scarborough Made Community portrait photography, from the Resilience series, 2021. Top two, left: by Sid Naidu Top two, right: by Alex Narvaez + Scarborough Made youth artists, Bottom row left to right: Photography by: Alicia Reid, Ferdinand Orlain, Nithursan Elamuhilan & Millicent Amurao
Curator & Creative Director, Ashley Mckenzie Barnes, 2019.
Celebrity Portrait Photographer & Visual Artist, Trevor Godhino, 2019.
Federick’s Restaurant Owner, Jennifer Lee, 2019.
Spoken Word Artist & Ontario’s first Poet Laureate: Randell Adjei, 2019.
Project co-founders, Sid Naidu + Alex Narvaez
SCARBOROUGHMADE.COM
KRISTIN MAN Vancouver, BC
A-MARE “ A-MARE” (to love-to sea) is a project about humanities connections with the sea as a metaphor. There may be many seas but ultimately, only one ocean. Kristin Man’s work speaks to various types of connections, such as our humanity, ecology, materiality-spirituality, memories and the relationships in-between. She chooses weaving photographs of seas important to her as a means of demonstrating connection, and how if one strand is broken, the rest of the piece is impacted. She encourages viewers of her work to question unauthentic boundaries. For example, by turning her photographs into 3D image-sculptures, she invites the viewer to explore their concept of what a photograph is. This piece, is called, “Tribute to Zong the Slaveship”. The work is inspired by J.M.W. Turner’s painting and Marlene Nourbese Philip’s poetry on the mass killing of slaves in the ocean. It was part of her solo show “A-MARE” at Canton-sardine last year. Social justice and ecology are two top priorities of her activism.
IG: @kristin.man
@Canton.sardine
ADAM KINGSMITH Toronto, ON
“ In the 2018 I was appointed as the role of archives officer for CUPE 3903, a public sector union representing thousands of teachers and researchers at York University. What followed over the next 143 days was the longest post-secondary strike in Canadian history. My role was to document the workings of the union and the actions of the strikers. I took hundreds of pictures on picket lines, in town-hall meetings, and during marches and demonstrations across the GTA. The images I have included use my custom fractal lenses on Ilford HP5 B&W to document the largest march of the strike in April 2018.
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The march down University avenue was to show solidarity in rejecting the forced ratification vote put forward by the employer and to celebrate the renewed energy of CUPE members to continue striking for a better contract. I intentionally used fractal lenses to document the march because I wanted to give the images a grainy, timeless quality, as if they could be from a strike in 2018 or 1918. My aim was to showcase the mass of entangled bodies and ethereal fractal reflections in the street, swaying in unison towards a shared purpose. My focus is on the continued importance of collective action and solidarity when fighting for social justice.”
IG: @8tking Twitter: @atkingsmith
86 photo ED
ERIN WALKER Edmonton, AB “ I ’m a queer liaison, and an ADHD whisperer. I understand my neurotypical, heteronormative privilege, and as such I use my resources and abilities to be the best support that I can for those around me who haven’t had the ease that I’ve had growing up. This is where my activism starts. This is a story of a trans man who is navigating his way through transitioning, mental illness, and life. He’s learning to communicate his needs. He’s learning to accept himself”.
IG: @walker_visuals_ Model: Frankie Schifano / frankieschifano.com
In need of a helping hand. Photography can notify others of how gratifying helping the planet, a community or even your own neighbourhood can be. Not to mention that pictorial activism doesn’t have to be expensive. Head to one of our auctions, fairs or sales for pre-owned equipment bargains that are fun, practical, and will give your wallet, along with the aforementioned planet, a break.
www.phsc.ca