FACING PHOTOGRAPHS

'Facing Photographs' conceptually departs from the work of Rosalie Favell, celebrated Winnipeg-born artist of Métis heritage who between 2008 and 2018 produced over five hundred individual portraits that comprise the series, 'Facing the Camera'. The work was initiated at Banff Centre when Favell was on residence and in the company of other Indigenous artists, wished to create a document of this group that grew to include photographs of artists and arts workers in Canada, Australia and the United States.

Drawing inspiration from Favell’s major series, 'Facing Photographs' brings together works primarily selected from Banff Centre’s Permanent Collection that take up questions of agency in relation to representations of self or those with whom the artist shares identification or social worlds. The presented works directly or implicitly engage with photography’s entanglement with the colonial project, refute fixed conceptions of identity, or reflect modes of self-representation and on its politics. In addition to contemporary lens-based media, the exhibition includes work in other media conceptually tied to ideas of portraiture.

Walter Phillips Gallery gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Government of Canada and Government of Alberta.