Does the camera lie?
A Canadian Document
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography
"The texts that accompany the photographs, taken from the original records, reflected and influenced the language, attitudes and values of the times."
This statement is repeated on labels throughout A Canadian Document, an exhibit of over 120 photographs from the defunct National Film Board's Still Photograph Division (SPD) collection, long since transferred to the museum. Culled from thousands of images commissioned and acquired by the SPD from 1941 till 1984, the black and whites, sprinkling of colour prints, and eight photostories published in Canadian newspapers and magazines, present an interesting though at times oblique version of our history—in hindsight. Trying to find some sense of "Canada" in these photos, is a bit of a doomed mission.
So much of this imagery, through no fault of the largely male photographers, reminded me far too much of American images that are virtually a part of our consciousness. As a photograph of post-war rebirth, for me, nothing compares with that of a uniformed sailor (!), dipping, holding and kissing a woman in the midst of a V-Day parade on the streets of New York. A photograph of a tickertape parade in Toronto? Next to being bombarded by sailor boy, it doesn't have much of a chance.
The paramount achievement of this exhibit lies elsewhere entirely.
This exhibit casts into stark relief the ongoing debate about objectivity and still photography and photography and the written word. It includes a fantastic demonstration of both responsiveness to and respect for viewers and a willingness to deal with reality—the latter hardly a strong point for most art galleries and institutions. The staff and presumably curator, Pierre Dessureault, have done what I've yet to see any other art institution do.
Next to one particularly ordinary looking photograph and caption, the text (quoted above) has been highlighted with lime green marker! Done in response to concerned questions from a viewer asking about a photograph's caption, in the stuffy sometimes claustrophobic and xenophobic world of museums, really, this is worth taking note of.
Photographer Unknown. "Canadian Navy Rounds Up Japanese Fishing Boats, Steveston B.C. January 1942." Approximately 11" x 14" this black and white image of hundreds of fishing boats nestled together, receding into the photograph in an inverted "V", looks as if it could have been taken anywhere. With a stripe running below the boats' rims, an almost painterly fog hangs over all, including the shoreline. Oddly, the boats are bunched up—obviously not left so by their owners. But using terms like "the Japs", the accompanying original caption instantly wrenched me into a context I could not have extrapolated from the photograph itself.
With its images, the Stills Division produced photostories for publication. Consisting of 6-10 photographs, the photostories were significantly manipulated by added text, all prepared by Division staff. We are told that, "The seizure of boats was done on a friendly basis. Many Jap fishermen have already volunteered to serve Canada in any war capacity."
That's as oblique a reference as I've ever read to an internment camp.
Published in The Ottawa Xpress, 1999
This statement is repeated on labels throughout A Canadian Document, an exhibit of over 120 photographs from the defunct National Film Board's Still Photograph Division (SPD) collection, long since transferred to the museum. Culled from thousands of images commissioned and acquired by the SPD from 1941 till 1984, the black and whites, sprinkling of colour prints, and eight photostories published in Canadian newspapers and magazines, present an interesting though at times oblique version of our history—in hindsight. Trying to find some sense of "Canada" in these photos, is a bit of a doomed mission.
So much of this imagery, through no fault of the largely male photographers, reminded me far too much of American images that are virtually a part of our consciousness. As a photograph of post-war rebirth, for me, nothing compares with that of a uniformed sailor (!), dipping, holding and kissing a woman in the midst of a V-Day parade on the streets of New York. A photograph of a tickertape parade in Toronto? Next to being bombarded by sailor boy, it doesn't have much of a chance.
The paramount achievement of this exhibit lies elsewhere entirely.
This exhibit casts into stark relief the ongoing debate about objectivity and still photography and photography and the written word. It includes a fantastic demonstration of both responsiveness to and respect for viewers and a willingness to deal with reality—the latter hardly a strong point for most art galleries and institutions. The staff and presumably curator, Pierre Dessureault, have done what I've yet to see any other art institution do.
Next to one particularly ordinary looking photograph and caption, the text (quoted above) has been highlighted with lime green marker! Done in response to concerned questions from a viewer asking about a photograph's caption, in the stuffy sometimes claustrophobic and xenophobic world of museums, really, this is worth taking note of.
Photographer Unknown. "Canadian Navy Rounds Up Japanese Fishing Boats, Steveston B.C. January 1942." Approximately 11" x 14" this black and white image of hundreds of fishing boats nestled together, receding into the photograph in an inverted "V", looks as if it could have been taken anywhere. With a stripe running below the boats' rims, an almost painterly fog hangs over all, including the shoreline. Oddly, the boats are bunched up—obviously not left so by their owners. But using terms like "the Japs", the accompanying original caption instantly wrenched me into a context I could not have extrapolated from the photograph itself.
With its images, the Stills Division produced photostories for publication. Consisting of 6-10 photographs, the photostories were significantly manipulated by added text, all prepared by Division staff. We are told that, "The seizure of boats was done on a friendly basis. Many Jap fishermen have already volunteered to serve Canada in any war capacity."
That's as oblique a reference as I've ever read to an internment camp.
Published in The Ottawa Xpress, 1999
