EXPOSURE FENCE: PEOPLE & PLACE

Olympic Plaza (outdoors)
January 27 - February 12

The Exposure Photography Festival presents EXPOSURE FENCE: PEOPLE & PLACE at Calgary’s Olympic Plaza, in partnership with Chinook Blast! Festival (Calgary) and Photoville (Brooklyn, New York, USA).

Curated by Beth Kane, People & Place presents the work of five visual artists based in Treaty 6 and 7 territories, also known as Southern Alberta. The work and perspectives of this dynamic group of exhibiting artists provide us with both celebratory and critical visual insights regarding the complex, intertwined relationships between People & Place within these traditional territories.

Through Tyler Tanner’s documentation of Calgary’s dynamic skate scene and DIY ethic and Oseremen Irete’s celebration of Alberta’s Black community and creatives, People & Place visually describes diverse identities and communities that energize this region.

To further social commentary using photography and encourage dialogue about challenging sociocultural correlations and disconnects here within our region, People & Place presents Nahanni McKay’s exploration of colonialism and the impact of mass tourism on Banff National Park, Louie Villanueva’s personal journey recounting his struggles with identity formation and passage between two cultures, and Dona Schwartz’s dissection of social networks and boundaries of Calgary’s lived communities.

Exposure’s free outdoor exhibition activates an accessible public space, enabling new opportunities for increased engagement with the art of photography and visual storytelling. Working with our exhibition partners, we amplify impactful visual narratives, offer novel insights, and connect artists to diverse audiences.

Open: 24/7
Access: Location is wheelchair accessible. Exhibition is child friendly.

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

Allberta, Oseremen Irete
Photography, for me, is primarily a personal endeavour. I am constantly capturing the world and people around me. This means I have an ever-growing portfolio of what I am surrounded by, that is Blackness as it exists in Southern-Alberta. A place that is home to vibrant Black communities despite not being thought of as such. Often when photography and Blackness meet the topic is trauma and pain. I am focused on capturing moments of Black joy, whether this is from my time as a party photographer or simply bringing a camera along when I’m with friends and family.

I Had Wished I Was White, Louie Villanueva
I Had Wished I Was White recounts Louie Villanueva's passage between cultures—one of family and one of peers—using photographs of his parents, food, and settler colonial lifestyles in Canada, made over a decade. Images detail specific moments in Villanueva's journey, expressing a universal struggle with identity. Photography provided a third way to tackle growing up, and this selection reveals this unconscious thread throughout life. I Had Wished I Was White is a clear title with personal imagery that gives language to a seldom expressed but commonly experienced tension.

Ordinary People (Like Me), Dona Schwartz
In Ordinary People (Like Me) Dona Schwartz conducts a social experiment through photographic portraiture. Initially inspired by Yoko Ono’s instruction to photograph “ordinary people” Schwartz approached the prompt by interrogating its premise. Who do we consider “ordinary”? How is “ordinary” defined? Schwartz worked collaboratively with her subjects. She used a referral process that spawned multiple distinct lineages of portrait subjects, starting with people she’d met through daily dog walks. The resultant series maps social networks and the boundaries of everyday lived communities. The work poses questions about self-concepts, identities, and labels that simultaneously unite us and keep us apart.

Penguin DIY, Tyler Tanner
Built in 2020 on the vacant site of the old Penguin Car Wash in Ramsay, local Calgary skateboarders contributed their hard work, personal funding and time to build and maintain Penguin DIY. This unique DIY skate spot was built in a tradition that honoured the legacy and roots of backyard pool skating that started in the 1970’s. Now defunct as a result of City planning, Penguin DIY will always be remembered in Calgary skate spot history for the countless skate sessions, fundraisers, barbecues, punk shows, and for bringing skateboarders together within an accepting and judgement free environment.

These Mountains Are Our Sacred Places, Nahanni McKay
Nahanni is a Metis-Cree artist and photographer based on Treaty 7 Territory. Born and raised in the Banff, her creative practice has focused on National Parks in Canada and the human impact on surrounding natural environments as well as the decolonization of land. Nahanni sees herself as a wildlife photographer but the only animals she photographs are ghosts. She uses her photography to bring awareness of the need to coexist with wildlife to prevent further harm to the land we reside on.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that the Exposure Fence: People & Place exhibition and Exposure Photography Festival takes place on the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. We would also like to acknowledge that the Exposure Photography Festival is situated on land adjacent to where the Bow River meets the Elbow River, and the traditional Blackfoot name of this place is “Moh’kins’tsis”, which we now call the City of Calgary. Finally, we honour and acknowledge all Nations, indigenous and non, who live, work and play in Moh’kins’tsis and help steward this land and honour and celebrate this territory.

exhibition partners

This exhibition is produced by Exposure Photography Festival, Chinook Blast Festival and Photoville, funded by Chinook Blast Festival and sponsored by Modu-Loc Fencing.

Olympic Plaza, 228 8 Ave SE, Calgary, AB T2P 2M5