DISPOSSESSION showing extended into April at Gallery Gachet
A new show Grant Mercs | For All Our Entropic States + Branko Djuras | Black and White With(out) the Grey opens this Friday, April 8 at the Gallery Gachet at 88 East Cordova in Vancouver. The showing of my piece, Dispossession, is enjoying its second extension and will be viewable in the salon area at the rear of the gallery, throughout this show.
Unfortunately the funding for a followup piece to Dispossession has been delayed, and with other projects now beginning to fill up my calendar, it may be a year or longer before I can revisit it.
DISPOSSESSION: showing at Gallery Gachet Dec 3 – Jan 16
Well Kizuna is now complete. How times flies… but fortunately, Dispossession, the piece I created for Kizuna, will live on as it travels next to the Downtown East Side’s Gallery Gachet (88 East Cordova) to be shown for the second of three communities that helped make it possible.
Dispossession will be on display in the Salon area of the gallery, and will be unveiled this Friday (7-10pm) at the opening of the Made of the Same Blood installation by artist Claudia Bernal.
DISPOSSESSION: My interview in The Bulletin’s October issue
A fairly revealing interview I had with John Endo Greenway of The Bulletin about my life experiences that ultimately led to the creation of Dispossession appears in their October issue. I spoke a lot about these experiences in my artist’s talk at the Japanese Canadian National Museum in October. The Bulletin is a monthly magazine (print and web) about the Japanese Canadian community and has been around for many, many years (1958, perhaps even earlier under a different name…?). You can read the interview on The Bulletin’s website, or below.
Born in Edmonton and raised in a suburb called Sherwood Park, filmmaker and photographer Greg Masuda had what he calls a very ‘Canadian’ prairie upbringing. “We’d do Canadian things like play hockey and baseball, eat Canadian things like Kraft Dinner, perogies, and steaks. But occasionally some sukiyaki would find its way to the table or my Dad would say something in Japanese that none of us understood, and I’ve known how to use chopsticks since I can remember. A couple times a year we would make it down to where my Dad was raised, near Lethbridge, and it was then, when we visited my family there, that a little more of our Japanese roots came out.”
By the time Greg was thirty he was living the Canadian dream—Vice President of a company that was one of the stock market darlings during the late 90s, a very good salary, plenty of stock options, a wife, a house in the suburbs, two nice cars in the garage, a dog and cat. As he says, “Every measure of success I had grown up with had been exceeded and my future was looking bright.”
At the end of 2005 though, within a matter of months, Greg’s world collapsed around him, the life he had carefully constructed in tatters. After the dust had cleared he was left feeling unfulfilled, somewhat taken advantage of, and depressed.
He began to question what he calls his neo-liberal values, eventually rejecting the corporate mindset where “good people can be made to say and do awful things in the interests of the shareholders.” As he concedes, “I’m not proud of that phase of my life. But I needed that wake up call to begin being true to myself. It’s the genesis of the work that I’m doing today in photography and film.”
That work is what brought him into the Kizuna exhibit, where his large-scale work Dispossession takes up much of one wall in the gallery. Now living in Vancouver, he was invited to take part in the project and he jumped at the chance to dig deeper into his roots in the community and to explore how the Japanese Canadian experience fits into the broader picture of what it means to be Canadian and displaced.
Interview: Greg Masuda
Your life took a ninety-degree turn from the one you lived up until you were thirty. What was it like to experience such a dramatic shift, not only in lifestyle, but approach to life itself?
At the beginning of 2009 I was set to carry on with that career. I was determined to get my CA to complement my executive experience and I was two months into articling at a big accounting firm in downtown Vancouver when a friend of mine planted this seed about film school. I had never considered making movies before but it sure sounded like a lot more fun than doing taxes and audits. Practically speaking, it was financial suicide, but in my heart it just felt right. I’m not a complete idiot though—I was in a good position to do it—my expenses were low, I had no dependents, I had some money in the bank and I figured I was still pretty employable if it didn’t work out. Still it was extremely scary, especially the money part, because I’ve never had to worry about money before, but also I suffer from some serious imposter syndrome . . . I had been a photographer on the side for a number of years but I just didn’t think I was good enough to actually make it in the arts. But then I imagined myself on my death bed reflecting on my life and wishing I had gone to film school when I had a chance—and that’s what pushed me over the edge. I think I’m doing pretty well for being only 18 months all-in, but I still get scared if I think about money for very long.
As part of the project, you went into the archives looking for inspiration. What did you find there?
The first photograph I saw during my research was the one that inspired the aesthetic for Dispossession. It’s a photo of an RCMP officer leading a long line of Japanese families outside of the immigration building in Vancouver, circa 1945. That photo represents the eastward displacement of Japanese Canadians during the internment, including my own family’s relocation from Shawnigan Lake to the sugar beet fields of southern Alberta.
I also spent a lot of time looking at the New Canadian from January 1942 onwards, especially during the first few months of 1942, before anyone knew their lives and their community were going to be confiscated by Canada. The gravity of my family’s loss really hit home for me. It made me angry with Canada actually, something I’ve never felt before.
Your contribution to this project is a single photograph, or at least that’s what it appears to be on the surface. In reality, the piece you have created is made up of many works that you have stitched together with Photoshop. What made you decide to work on such a large scale?
In November 2009 I began to work as a camera assistant on a CTV documentary about Vancouver’s world famous photo conceptualist artists including Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace, and Rodney Graham. Their work was very new to me. They work in a large scale format which sometimes takes years of planning and production to create. Witnessing these masters at work completely changed my approach to photography, and I owe them credit for inspiring this new approach. I tried to mimic some of their methods and the scale of their work in this piece, and, for the most part, it seems to have worked. But it’s not my first piece either. I did a ‘practice’ piece for another small show in June, a photograph I call Repulsion.
Can you talk about the thought process behind creating this piece?
Beth Carter asked me to participate in Kizuna a whole year ago but it wasn’t until August that I actually decided what the photograph would be. After a conversation with Lily Shinde about the internment, the photo began as an idea for a documentary film seeded by my brother, about the dispossession of populations in Vancouver starting with colonization of First Nations, then the Japanese Canadian internment, and finally the gentrification of today’s Downtown Eastside community. Whatever form discrimination takes, be it racial or socio-economic, it’s the same thing repeating itself over and over again over the past 150 years. It’s shocking what was acceptable to society and endorsed by our government in the past, i.e. the genocide of First Nations and the racial hatred of the Japanese, and I hope that people will realize what’s taking place right now on the Downtown Eastside and to see that it’s equally unacceptable. I hope that this piece will add to the voices of the community that have been trying to get that point across all this time. It’s sad but I think the majority of Vancouverites, and Canadians for that matter, would just as soon see the whole neighbourhood gentrified with condos and coffee shops. There’s just so much ignorance out there.
It’s quite a remarkable work—what should people look for when they see it?
The exhibition photograph is 9.5 feet wide by over 2 feet tall, that is, it’s pretty big but there is a lot of detail to look at as well. It’s meant to be scrutinized, from a very micro view of the details of East Hastings, to the much larger picture that you can only appreciate if you stand back ten feet. I hope the viewers take the time to really look at this photo from all perspectives you need to really appreciate it.
Also, everything is in there for a reason. The location was very carefully scouted. Notice that they’re walking away from the Woodwards building for example—there’s a reason for that. The people in the photo are there on purpose, their gender, race, age are all intentional. Some are ghosts and some are not. The trees are black and white while Hastings Street is in colour . . . The direction the people are walking and even the directions they are looking are intentional. The little girl is looking right at you. Some viewers have even pointed out details that I hadn’t intended to put in but speak to them—like the graffiti you can see through the RCMP officer and the fact that it sits right where his heart is. What that means to her might not mean anything to someone else, or it might mean something completely different. There is a ton of intention and information put into this piece but it really depends what the viewers see for themselves and what messages they take away from it. I hope they get my message, but maybe take something else away that’s unique to their experience too.
You’ve moved from the outer reaches of the Japanese Canadian diaspora to the community’s historic home, the downtown eastside. You’re still young, but you have lived those two realities. Have you learned anything about what it means to be Japanese Canadian, or being a hapa?
I don’t actually live in the Downtown Eastside but I spend time working and volunteering there. I was on the board of the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House for a bit and I’m also on the Advocacy Committee of the Powell Street Festival. My experience working in the neighbourhood has kept me grounded, especially when I was working for that big accounting firm. You can get so caught up in work and business and nearly everyone around you is chasing material wealth and bigger and better things. I actually depended on my work in the Downtown Eastside to save me from buying back into those ideas.
What I’ve also learned, from my research and my time in the Japanese Canadian community, is that the internment was very real, and very devastating. I myself am a product of the internment if it weren’t for my father’s relocation to Southern Alberta, he would have never met my mother and I would not exist today. But, since I do, I have taken every opportunity to learn about this side of my family. The more time I spend in the archives, the more I feel that I am part of the Japanese Canadian community.
Was this your first time delving into the archives? What do you bring away from this project?
Yes, it was my first time, but I attended a genealogy workshop last fall that was very inspiring. I looked into what it meant for my family. I also found fear mongering ads in the New Canadian from Vancouver businesses trying to capitalize on the Japanese Canadian question and that’s what really makes me sad. We think that the internment was racially motivated, and it was, but there is also a pattern of financial motivation in all instances of Vancouver’s dispossessed. Greed isn’t unique to Vancouver of course, but it’s been ground zero for a lot of battles over property and land—real estate—for as long as Vancouver has existed. It’s shocking—and the saddest part is that it’s happening again right now. This is what I’ll take away the most, as my brother and I continue this research for a documentary film.
You’re heavily involved in film, what projects are upcoming for you?
I am pitching a new film project about hereditary cancer to a theatre of international commissioning editors and industry professionals at the Vancouver International Film Festival on September 28. I also have some photographic projects in mind that will pick up where Repulsion left off. I start a three month internship at the National Film Board on October 4. My brother and I are also working on a documentary film in the same spirit as the Dispossession photograph.
DISPOSSESSION: (1) Thanks! (2) Radio interview on CBC Radio One! (3) Artist talk September 16 at the Japanese Canadian National Museum!
Dispossession (2010) - the dispossession of three populations of Vancouver in the last 150 years (26 x 113 inches, Edition of 3 + 1 AP) - on display at Japanese Canadian National Museum until November 27, 2010
Thanks to everyone who came out to the opening party for Kizuna this evening! The performances were wonderful and the crowd was very large and engaging. I am sorry if I didn’t get to talk to everyone in great detail… but there will be a second chance to discuss my piece, Dispossession, at my artist talk which is taking place on Thursday, September 16 at 7pm at the Japanese Canadian National Museum (6688 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby).
I will also be on Sheryl MacKay’s show North By Northwest on CBC Radio One at 7:30am on Sunday September 12 (if you sleep in you can download the podcast).
UPDATE the podcast is now available here (the Sept 12 episode) or you can listen to it here.
DISPOSSESSION PART 5 of 5: CONSTRUCTING A SINGLE IMAGE FROM MANY – Reflecting on the creative process of my photograph for Kizuna
It probably doesn’t surprise you to read that this isn’t a single exposure from my camera. This single image, which will be hanging in the museum starting September 10, is actually a composite of more than 30 separate photographs, selected from over 1000 exposures (probably closer to 1500 but I’m not going to count). That’s about the extent of my technique that I’m going to reveal, except to say that in every way, I have never attempted anything like this before. Yes I’ve done photo composites before, but usually a single location, with 1 or 2 people, and 1 or 2 photographs merged into one.
Repulsion (2010) - by Yours Truly. This is the first photo composite I created for exhibition purposes. It's a scene reconstructed from memory (or research), staged with actors and digitally post-produced, an approach inspired by the Jeff Walls, Stan Douglases and Rodney Grahams of the world. There are only two photos in this composite whereas there are more than thirty photos that make up 'Dispossession', the photograph I created specifically for Kizuna.
I did two composites earlier this year (not knowing I would use, nay stretch, the technique into this one made up of three locations, 17 people, and 30-plus photos). Cake, right? My computer didn’t think so. (Warning: I’m going to geek out once more for a bit here) Before this project I thought Macs and Photoshop (a legit CS4 version on an 8-month new 27” iMac i7 with 8GB RAM) were fast and stable systems. That is until Photoshop starts saving your files automatically into the “.psb” format (not .psd for those who know what I mean). That means you’ve gone past the maximum file size that .psd can handle into this other realm known as “Large File Format”. It begins to happen around 2GB. When it gets up to 5 or 6GB, that’s when your (my) previously stable system begins to crash and reboots to reduce crashes are the norm. Saving your progress takes 5-10 minutes when you’re working with a 6GB file. Opening a 6GB file takes 5-10 minutes. Then there’s visually inspecting 200 million pixels to make sure there aren’t any defects… and fixing the defects you find (I hope I found them all). Let’s just say it took a whole lot of time to do the post production on this image.
Quinton, Wendy, Doug, Kasey, Nikolina, Me, Donna, Rachel - only a few of the dedicated bunch who made 'Dispossession' possible!
Which brings us full circle. Back to the print lab. I’m still here, in my third coffee shop today, blogging this verbose retrospective. The proofs for my print will be ready to view tomorrow, and the mounting material, aluminum, has been ordered. It’ll then take the better part of the remaining 1.5 weeks before the show to print, laminate, mount, and transport (Does your car have room to move a 9.5 foot piece of handle-with-extreme-care metal from Vancouver to Burnaby? Mine doesn’t) the photo by September 9, in time to be installed for the September 10 Opening Party.
If you can’t make the party it will be on display in the museum until November 27. Hope you can make it out to see it! Oh did I mention the title of the photograph is ‘Dispossession’?
Oh, you want to see it here? Well, maybe I’ll post something after the 10th.
A final plug for the show where you can see the completed photograph in all of its 9.5 feet of glory. Opening Party 7pm Sept 10 at the JCNM at 6688 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby. Tix $10.
DISPOSSESSION PART 4 of 5: A COMMUNITY (AND THE RCMP) RESPONDS! – Reflecting on the creative process of my photograph for Kizuna
At this point, time was not on my side but I’ve never been one to give up a project I believe in. It could be done. It would be done, one way or another. Call me foolishly ambitious. Two things I had going for me: 1. I wasn’t a stranger to the neighbourhood – I had become fairly well connected to the Downtown Eastside and Japanese Canadian communities in the past three years. 2. the Powell Street Festival was days away – surely I could find a “Japanese-looking family” to appear as “ghosts” in the photograph there! The response was initially slow but then it seemed like overnight I had cast the roles of the ghosts and the three present day community representatives. Doug Masuhara, Derek & Sayaka Iwanaka, Kasey Ryne Mazak, Donna Nakamoto, Ty Evans, Sahali Lee Tsang, Tyler Win, Kaylen Win, Sid Chow Tan, Donna Gilkes, Robert Bonner, Wendy Charbonneau… Cast – check!
Donna, Sayaka, Derek, and Rempel - Rempel styled Donna and Sayaka's hair for the shoot.
The other, very important person I needed to recruit was a Stylist to create the wardrobe for the ghosts. Authenticity was key, so I needed someone who I believed could do the job. Fortunately, my roommate Nikolina Suric is in the biz. She had just finished heading up the costuming department on a TV pilot and was available and interested. Unfortunately, her wardrobe at Capilano University wasn’t accessible until the fall so she would have to purchase and/or make all of the costumes for the shoot, cutting deeper into my production budget. The most difficult costume to find wasn’t a costume at all – we needed a 1942-era RCMP uniform like the one that appears in the JCNM’s photo, leading the families along the tracks.
Photographing Ty in the elusive RCMP uniform. Ty was the first person I cast and the last costume we found.
I contacted my MP, Libby Davies, for help and they referred me to a local RCMP office. I wrote a letter to the RCMP explaining the project and the context in which the uniform would be used – and then waited… with no response (and still have not received one). In the meantime, just less than a week before the shoot, Nikolina found us the real thing at a movie service company, with King’s Crown badges, brown surge, striped jodhpurs, belt, cross strap, hat – everything! The only problem was – as we discovered after battling a few hours of Trans Canada construction traffic between Vancouver and Aldergrove – they wouldn’t rent it to us until we had written permission from the RCMP Intellectual Property Office in Ottawa! And there were only 3 days left until the shoot! (The RCMP uniform is trademarked you see, and after some abuse of these rights by commercial clients (which I learned includes some Olympic clients), the RCMP was coming down hard on anyone with access to RCMP marks.) I sent all of my correspondence to Ottawa and begged for their permission! To my surprise they were extremely responsive – I was shocked when the Sergeant in charge actually answered his phone on the first ring! But, as I learned after two days of back and forth, their response was negative. Permission needed approval from some higher-ups. I lost faith but wrote one more email trying to explain my case further – even if they did approve, there was no way I would get their approval in time for the shoot. An hour later, an email arrived while I was wondering what I would do. It was a yes! They had given me permission to use it for Kizuna! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I happily camped my butt in bumper to bumper traffic on the trip to Aldergrove to get the uniform. Costumes – check!
An early test shot from location scouting - note the crane is to the EAST of Woodwards - it's a luxury condo development. There is also a trendy new cafe at street level in the building directly to the left of the crane where the DTES locals line up for the smoked salmon panini... not.
Where to shoot it? Powell Street? Gentrification is marching east but it hadn’t reached Japantown quite yet (it probably will). I needed a place that demonstrated the real-estate steamroller effect on the Downtown Eastside community. The Woodward’s development was an obvious choice but I needed to check some facts first. I met with some community leaders I knew and began to do some fact checking. Woodward’s was ‘ground zero’ for the Woodsquat of 2002, where promises were made that eventually led to the end of the squat. While the community was invited to the table for extensive brainstorming of how the space would look and benefit the Downtown Eastside (most of which was ignored), and while some low income housing was included (75 family units, 125 single person units), the development of commercial and common spaces and over 500 market-rate condominiums (which sold out in hours at an average of $380,000), has proven also to be a vehicle for middle class outsiders, corporate tenants, and real-estate speculators to displace the poor. Today, Woodward’s is seen by Downtown Eastsiders as a literal reminder (two condo towers cast large shadows over the neighbourhood) and an iconic green light for gentrification east of Main. My choice for the location subtly shows the Woodwards building in the background, to the west (left), with community people (and the ghosts) symbolically walking away from it, eastward (right) – the direction which they are actually being displaced, and the direction that Japanese Canadians were also forced to move, 68 years ago. Location 1 of 3 – Check.
My early concept photograph for 'Dispossession' that decided the march would be "Ghosts" from the past. I also decided to place Woodward's more subtly in the background.
Initially my plan was that the Japanese Canadians would not appear as ghosts at all – they would be marching in the flesh, in costume right down Hastings with the present day neighbourhood people. That was the way it was going to be – until one day I pieced together a concept photo from my Hastings test shoot and the JCNM original. When I dropped these figures into the background, the idea for ghosts was decided. In addition to the symbolic meaning of something from the past, this approach would solve a number of other logistical and technical issues I was struggling with. I didn’t think I would have an authentic 1942 RCMP uniform and I didn’t know how authentic the other costumes would be (all were quite authentic in the end). I also fretted over the nightmare of arranging 10-15 people to hit their marks simultaneously, not to mention drawing a crowd of passers-by, and perhaps the Vancouver Police Department. On my budget, coordinating this safely and effectively was a major risk. But if I did ghosts… that brings us to location #2: the Greenscreen Shoot. This was easy. On my third call looking for a space, the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House offered both to manage traffic at the Day 1 Hastings shoot AND open up their space (AND provide healthy snacks!) for my makeshift greenscreen studio for the Day 2 Shoot. Location 2 of 3 – Check.
Kaylen and Tyler melting under the lights. It was a very hot day in very warm clothes under very hot lights. I think Nikolina, my wardrobe stylist, was just plain evil for making them wear scrarves!
The third location was the one I was less sure of. Somehow I needed to represent the first, and largest dispossession – that of the Coast Salish First Nations. I initially thought about including old-growth trees in the photo but my second choice was to place First Nations art strategically in the photo. But all of my calls to First Nations artists (Musqueam and Squamish I tried) were coming up empty. Trees it would be. Where are there trees that could represent those that once stood in the area now known as the Downtown Eastside? Stanley Park. Off I went. Location 3 of 3 – Check.
Wendy Charbonneau, a Squamish Junior Elder, in her regalia. She wore a cedar bark headband, an eagle feather and jewelry that was 900 years old!!
But were trees enough? The main contacts for First Nations leaders were away on vacation. Robert Bonner is Cree, and represents today’s aboriginal population in the Hastings scene, but Cree is not a First Nation of this area. Then, two days before the Greenscreen Shoot, Gary Johnston of the Native Education College returned my call to let me know his sister, Wendy Charbonneau, a Squamish Junior Elder, would be happy to appear in the photograph in full regalia. Wendy was the last piece in this complex puzzle of pre-production.
So three distinct and related communities had responded and were ready to go. Costumes were ready, locations selected. Then came the (relatively) easy part. Actually taking the photograph(s)…
DISPOSSESSION PART 3 of 5: THE IDEA – Reflecting on the creative process of my photograph for Kizuna
My brother, Dr. Jeff Masuda, at the Vancouver Archives while we were researching the location of our grandparent's confectionery store.
The idea for this photograph was not mine. It was my brother’s. My brother, Dr. Jeff Masuda is a professor of human geography at the University of Manitoba now, but three years ago, we both coincidentally ended up moving to Vancouver within a month of each other.
He was doing a post-doc at UBC, researching the effect of environment on health, specifically in the inner city of Toronto, and the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. He brought me onto his project to teach his subjects how to take better photos with disposable cameras. That was my first real exposure to the Downtown Eastside. Another thing we both had in common was our family of course – in the 1920’s our grandparents worked in the confectionery store in New World Hotel across from Oppenheimer Park, right in the heart of Japantown, the Downtown Eastside. My Dad’s family joked that they had to quit that business because the kids were eating all of their profits. The family moved to Shawnigan Lake in the 1930’s where my Dad was born in 1941. In 1942 they were forced to move again, and they chose the Alberta sugar beet fields over internment camps, in order to keep the family from being split 3 ways.
Last year I produced a documentary film about a research project that my brother was supervising and it was a successful collaboration – it’s still doing fairly well for both of us. Jeff subsequently suggested a topic for another film we would collaborate on, this time about the history of dispossessed communities in the area of the Downtown Eastside… First Nations, the Japanese Canadians, and the present-day Downtown Eastside.
In the meantime, I had been doing some volunteer work with the JCNM, the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House, the Powell Street Festival Society, and PIVOT Legal’s Hope In Shadows. In one project for SPARC BC I was lucky to find myself working with Rika Uto, Donna Nakamoto, and Scott Graham. It was there that I also met Lily Shinde who is on the Human Rights Committee of the Japanese Canadian Citizen’s Association – she and I spoke at length about the importance of remembering the internment, and frankly, until that conversation, I hadn’t thought a lot about it since my high school days. She inspired me to always remember and to think critically about that period in our history. I filed our conversation near the front of my mind to come back to later…
Lily Shinde and I at the Greenscreen shoot. Lily is my official community consultant for Kizuna, and a new friend!
In parallel with Kizuna, I began to do some research at the JCNM for this film. The first photograph I looked at in the collection struck me – the conversation with Lily surfaced – and I began to research more. My brother was visiting from Manitoba for this summer’s Powell Street Festival and I arranged a meeting with him, Lily and myself.
This photograph (circa 1942) from the JCNM collection, the very first one I saw during my research, inspired the aesthetic and the subject for Dispossession.
I proposed the idea for the photograph – and they were both enthusiastically on board. That was the green light I needed – I merged my research for the film and the Kizuna photograph and began to plan my August – this was an ambitious photograph – with only one month until the Kizuna show could this possibly be completed in time?
DISPOSSESSION PART 2 of 5: A NEW APPROACH – Reflecting on the creative process of my photograph for Kizuna
I delivered the file to the lab… I should mention that this is no Costco/Superstore/London Drugs lab we’re talking about – this is a pro lab that caters to high end fine art and commercial jobs where they produce prints for some of the most famous photographers in the world… and it’s just a little intimidating when they open your file and ask immediately – “would you like that corrected?” Indeed, and this brings me to my verbosity about one of my inspirations behind the approach I took in the creation of this photo.
Not so long ago, I left the comfort and security of a well-paying glass tower office career to go to film school. Excuse me? Pardon? You did what? Long story short, besides the financial sacrifices that this decision brought, it was a very good one for my soul’s sake. A few months from graduating I was hired onto a documentary production called Vancouver Rising (airs this fall on Bravo and Knowledge), which tells the story of Vancouver’s world famous fine art photographers the likes of Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham, Ian Wallace, Christos Dikeakos and others.
Dead Troops Talk (1992) - Jeff Wall. An fictional scene of dead troops speaking and joking is staged with actors.
This job was a dream come true, but I just didn’t know it then. At the time fine art photography was pretty foreign to me and talking about fine art photography went right over my head. All of my work for previous decade had been Cartier-Bresson/documentary/decisive moment inspired, and it was this approach I assumed I would be taking or my Kizuna assignment. As I witnessed these photographers at work, listened to their interviews, attended their exhibitions with them, and was even offered a job on one of their productions (which I had to turn down not once but twice!! Due to prior commitments. Arrrgh!), I began to appreciate their approach. Rather than being the observer in the moment, with a camera in hand, most of their work was pre-visualized, planned, then shot and constructed meticulously over a period of months, sometimes years – for one photograph. It was a film production-like approach in many ways with extensive pre-production and post-production stages. The shooting itself occupies a relatively short amount of time (assuming it’s well-planned and goes smoothly).
Abbott & Cordova (2010) - Stan Douglas. You can see the real thing in the atrium of the Woodward's building. The scene is a recreation of the 1971 Gastown Riot and was staged including the buildings, near the PNE
May I bring to your attention the Stan Douglas photo of the Gastown Riots in the atrium of the Woodward’s building as an example (if you can’t find it, just look up). You can also view the work of any of these photographers at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Anyhow, as my idea for my subject finally began to gel only 10 months after being commissioned by the JCNM (with only one month remaining to do it!) it was this meticulously planned and constructed approach in creating a single image that I chose. Next… the idea.
DISPOSSESSION PART 1 of 5: EXERCISING MY INNER GEEK – Reflecting on the creative process of my photograph for Kizuna
It’s been almost a year since Beth Carter of the Japanese Canadian National Museum called me to ask if I would be interested in being a part of this show. Now, as I sit in a Café sipping a coffee, typing on my laptop, waiting for the lab to open so I can deliver my final file to be printed, I finally have a moment to reflect, and contribute to the blog. I’m sorry for not making more contributions – indeed I do enjoy writing but knowing from the experience of having my own blog, intentions and actuals do not always jive – blogging can be a lot of work!
The last week and a day has been superbly, crazily hectic. The actual shoot for this photograph occurred over three days, with several days before that going out for location scouting, test shooting and experimenting. When I wasn’t on a shoot I’ve been hunched over my computer 12-18 hours per day clicking and tapping, blending and masking. I definitely pushed the limits of my ability in this photo not to mention the limits of my equipment – in every way, this is my most ambitious and complex piece ever. I squeezed every pixel out of my 22 megapixel camera (the final photograph’s native resolution is a gnat’s breath over 200 megapixels – well how do you get a 200 Megapixel photo from a 22 Megapixel camera you ask? That’s no big secret but if you want to know you’ll have to come to show and ask me!). That file, at its largest, was pushing 8 Gigabytes (yes that’s 8 Gigabytes with a capital G) and brought my nearly-new i7 Mac to a crawl – THAT has never happened before. Whew. Okay, well thank you for letting me express my inner geek… now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you all of this was cake compared to the real work that happened BEFORE the last week and day, before any of the shooting began… in my next post.
DISPOSSESSION: New photograph at Kizuna show – opens Sept. 10 at the Japanese Canadian National Museum
Almost a year ago, I was asked by Beth Carter at the Japanese Canadian National Museum if I would create some original photography for a group exhibition, along with Mark Takeshi McGregor, Natalie Purschwitz and Miyuki Shinkai. This was quite an honour so naturally I accepted her invitation. I have created a new photograph called Dispossession that will be unveiled along with the works of three other artists of Japanese Canadian heritage.
Part of the project was to document our creative process. I will be posting a 5-part verbosity of the creative process behind Dispossession here on my blog. It also is viewable at the Kizuna blogsite.
The opening party is Friday, September 10 at 7pm at the Japanese Canadian National Museum, 6688 Southoaks Crescent in Burnaby, BC. The she party is open to everyone and tickets are $10.
I will also be doing an artist’s talk at the museum on Thursday, September 16 at 7pm where I will talk about the creation of this photo.
Stay tuned for my blog Part 1 of the creative process.
