Inhospitably Ours
Philip Kanwischer offers insight into our relationships with animals.
Philip Kanwischer, “Taking a Stand,” 2014
archival pigment print, 20” x 20”
Calgary artist Philip Kanwischer stands with the animals.
One of the most compelling images in his current exhibition, Inhospitably Ours – Take II, shows him posed with two reindeer, all staring straight ahead at viewers, as if in a police line-up.
It seems unlikely and it is. Kanwischer created the work, Taking a Stand, by digitally inserting himself into the photograph to create an intriguing visual commentary on the complex relationship between humans and animals.
Kanwischer's goal is not to take naturalistic wildlife pictures. Rather, his show, on view at the Edge Gallery in Canmore, Alta., until July 3, seeks out moral, psychological and political terrain.
While he does photograph wildlife, he is mostly concerned with creating an archive of images that he later bonds together digitally to create what he calls “realistic, probable and problematic interactions.”
Philip Kanwischer, “Bear Study 2,” 2018
archival pigment print, 20” x 20”
Kanwischer, who completed his Masters degree earlier this year at NSCAD University in Halifax, has an interesting eye. The works in the show are varied. Some are successful, others less so, but all point to a curious spirit.
At times, the work has surrealistic tensions. For instance, one piece shows a bear that seems to be wearing a moose head. It makes me think about masks, Indigenous stories, European fables and genetic manipulation, as well as the conventions of wildlife painting and nature photography.
Philip Kanwischer, “Free,” 2015
archival pigment print, 20” x 20”
In Free, an elk seemingly wears a circular pathway into the snow with its relentless pacing. The worried, compulsive quality of the circle is a mental state we all recognize. Yet the image also evokes caged animals, whether a tiger that paces the perimeter of its cage or a gerbil relegated to exercise on a treadmill.
More than anything, Kanwischer's work, also presented earlier this year at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff as part of Exposure, Alberta’s photography festival, reminds us that humans are also animals. At a time of environmental decline and a hastening climate crisis, the hubris of denying we are part of nature is becoming frighteningly apparent, not only for us, but for all life on the planet. ■
Inhospitably Ours – Take II is on view at the Edge Gallery in Canmore, Alta., from June 1 to July 3, 2019.
The Edge Gallery - Canmore
612 Spring Creek Drive, Canmore, Alberta T1W 0C7
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