SHUTTER AND THINK
The annual Exposure photography festival gives gallery-goers a snapshot of the state of the art as well as the chance to ponder its importance in our image-saturated times.
The annual Exposure photography festival gives gallery-goers a snapshot of the state of the art as well as the chance to ponder its importance in our image-saturated times.
When she moved to Calgary in 2014, Dona Schwartz was excited to discover that the city was home to a photography festival. She quickly added volunteering at Exposure to her work as a fine art photographer and an associate professor in the University of Calgary’s department of art.
As Exposure prepares to bring photography to the city’s artistic foreground (this year’s festival runs Feb. 1-28) Schwartz is now president and board chair. More importantly, she is “on a mission to make the festival more diverse, interesting and inclusive.”
With The Fence, she is also giving Exposure, which in the past could seem like a disconnected series of exhibits, a bigger public profile and a unifying principle. The Fence is a travelling exhibition created by United Photo Industries (UPI), which is based in Brooklyn. As the name suggests, it consists of images displayed on construction hoarding. In Calgary it will run from the Peace Bridge to festival headquarters at Eau Claire. As such, those who follow it east will wind up in the centre of the Exposure action and be able to check out the Emerging Photographers Showcase; an exhibition dedicated to last year’s showcase winner, Blake Chorley; and the Open Call
Group Exhibition, selected by Andrea Kunard, the associate curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, and Schwartz.
Schwartz landed the exhibition—the first time The Fence has been seen outside the U.S.—in part by buttonholing Sam Barzilay at FotoFest in Houston. Barzilay, one of the founders of UPI, was on a panel where he talked about the group’s work. “I was immediately struck by his energy and creativity,” Schwartz recalls. “And when he mentioned in passing that he wanted The Fence to be international, that’s all I needed to hear. I cornered him and said, ‘Sam, Canada is a foreign country.’”
Barzilay and his UPI colleague Dave Shelley will be giving a walking tour of The Fence on Saturday, Feb. 3 and taking part in a panel discussion on Sunday, Feb. 4. For the latter, entitled Photography as Public Art: the Fence, the Festival,
the Community, they will be joined by Kunard and Schwartz, who says the talk will get to the heart of what Exposure is all about. “Photography is a medium that touches us all every day,” she says. “It’s crucial to think about its importance and its expressive power.”
Exposure 2018: Feb. 1-28, various locations. For more information and a complete schedule, visit exposurephotofestival.com.