Don Gill | Human Relations / Carceral Culture

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Don Gill, “Social Relations,” no date

(courtesy of the Gallery)

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 7, 7:00 – 9:00 pm

I started walking seriously as a youth growing up between Cranbrook BC and Calgary AB, not just out of necessity but also because of interest. I had nowhere to go that needed hurrying, and it seemed that walking was as good a way as any other mode of transportation available. Places I particularly liked to walk to were the Calgary Airport, where there was an airplane on a stick at the entrance that fascinated me; a WW ll Lancaster Flying Fortress. It’s no longer there as the airport changed location and the plane didn’t move with it. I didn’t take any photos with my camera of the time, a lovely Kodak Brownie Reflex, however the other place on my preferred list at which I did take photos with my trusty Brownie was the Calgary Zoo. This was 1969. The photos I took at the zoo of the time have been lodged in the back of my mind for the intervening decades and generated an ongoing system of thought around the idea of looking – and of looking back when being looked at. That momentary pause of recognition of being recognized as something of at least passing interest.

A conceptually-based photographer and artist, Don Gill is in the eleventh year of an unbroken walking project: Erratic Drawings: dongillwalking, consisting of daily mapped walks. These ongoing maps can be seen at: dongillwalking.blogspot.ca.

He attended and taught at several educational institutions across Canada and the US, particularly the University of Lethbridge where he taught Photo Arts for more than 20 years.