Vancouver’s annual Capture Photography Festival, a citywide celebration of lens-based art that involves over 70 galleries, institutions and public places, kicks off April 1. Now in its fourth year, the 2017 edition marks a month of firsts and expansion.
Fresh this year, is a non-juried open program that shows new and upcoming artists. It complements the juried program, which received 50 submissions from regional galleries and their artists. Thirty were selected.
“It was really about the photos, the concept, the statement and the artist’s practice,” festival director Meredith Preuss says about the juried program. “We looked at something that had a strong voice and a sense of purpose. The open program is an opportunity for people who maybe don’t have representation or don’t have an opportunity to show in those kinds of spaces. A lot will choose to show in less conventional spaces, whether that’s a coffee shop or a studio or some kind of flex space. That’s the kind of venues we’re starting to see come out of the open program.”
Durrah Alsaif, "Qimash," 2017
digital C-print. Alsaif is a finalist for the Lind Prize, a competition for post-secondary fine arts students. A show by finalists is on view from April 7 to April 28 at Presentation House in North Vancouver.
While video continues to be important, today’s artists are embracing all kinds of media, says Preuss.
“There’s a really exciting emerging scene that is taking a more cross-disciplinary approach to photography,” she says. “Rather than thinking about themselves as strictly photographers, today’s artists encompass photography, but also writing, painting, sculpture or installation. Capture showcases the lens-based aspect of their practice, but in a larger context of what they’re doing.”
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Greg Girard, “Hong Kong Café, Chinatown,” 1978
archival pigment print, 28” x 38” Courtesy of the artist and Monte Clark Gallery. Showing as part of "Under Vancouver 1972-1982" at the Monte Clark Gallery from April 22 to May 27.
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Carol Sawyer, “I attempt from love’s sickness to fly, in vain,” 2017
HD video, detail, dimensions variable. Showing at the Republic Gallery from April 22 to May 20.
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Victor John Penner, “Rabbit Lane,” 2016
archival pigment print, 48” x 60”. Showing as part of "District" at the West Vancouver Museum from March 29 to May 6.
The range is impressive. Sean Alward marries painting and photography in a series of abstract canvasses called Liquid Mountains. Nicole Langdon-Davies cultivates warm feelings of nostalgia in her homage to Polaroids in Project Instant V4:0: RetroGratification. Barbara Cole shoots her models underwater in a swimming pool and manipulates her images with overlays and backgrounds to create ephemeral dreamscapes in a series called Falling Through Time. Monique Motut-Firth takes a playful approach to what advertisers call product shots with Consumed, a series of photomontages comprised of magazine illustrations. Cindy Mochizuki creates a virtual time machine, transporting viewers to Japan through video, sculpture and performance in her one-hour multimedia installation, Rock, Paper, Scissors.
The festival’s featured exhibition, Song of the Open Road, curated by Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery, is the festival’s premier attraction. It showcases 10 cross-disciplinary artists, among them Vikky Alexander, Robert Arndt and Kelly Lycan, and is anchored by Ireland’s representative to the 2007 Venice Biennale, Gerard Byrne. Byrne’s work, Images or shadows of divine things, consists of over 20 images of 1950’s Americana and documents the interplay between time, appearance and the photographic image. Niahm O’Malley’s video installation, Glasshouse, depicts a row of derelict greenhouses shot through panes of glass of varying opacity. As the camera continues its left to right tracking motion, the greenhouses float in and out of focus, in effect separating them from their natural surroundings. With Ambient Advertising, Kelly Jazvac cuts a huge vinyl advertising photo mural into strips and hangs them like a curtain over the gallery’s front windows. They will stay there for the duration of the festival.
Elizabeth Zvonar, “Springtime,” 2017
Nelmarie du Preez, “Loops of Relation,” 2013-15
Public art is always a major part of the Capture Festival. This year, its public outreach has been expanded to include more venues and municipalities. Conceptual artist James Nizam is producing a site-specific photo mural for a suburban telephone exchange. Matthew Brooks is decorating a union hall. Six emerging artists are presenting site-specific work in light boxes along a major suburban road and seven photo-based works will be installed in various rapid transit stations. Pedestrians can see Joseph Staples and his deconstructed Falun Series hanging in a store window in tourist-friendly Gastown. These installations, including the Capture billboard project, expanded to 17 works this year, are a way for the festival to reach a wider public.
Also new this year is the Vancouver photography book fair. It gives artists and publishers a chance to show off their wares during a three-day mini-festival.
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Michael Love, “A Question of Balance,” Landsdowne East Canada Line station installation, Richmond, B.C.
Image courtesy of the artist.
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Luke Potter, "Art Classroom," 2016
composite photograph. Potter's project, "Silence in Schools," is showing at the Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art in North Vancouver until April 12.
Workshops and artist talks round out Capture. Preuss points to two workshops for teens, one on the history of photography, the role of the Internet and the mechanics of image manipulation, and the second about melding text and photographs to create a photo zine. “It’s a nice direction,” says Preuss. “It’s really important. We’re excited to be offering something that is geared towards that demographic.”
The Capture Photography Festival runs April 1 to April 28. A complete list of events and exhibitions can be found at www.capturephotofest.com.
