JOANNIE LAFRENIÈRE’S PLAYTIME: KERRY MANDERS & BRANDY RYAN IN CONVERSATION
KERRY MANDERS AND BRANDY RYAN IN CONVERSATION
Kerry Manders:
This issue of Photoed Magazine asks us to consider photography and fun, images that offer joy and perhaps brighten your day. What do you think of this theme at this time?
brandy ryan:
We’re having this conversation, in winter, in Toronto, temperatures are dropping, and the days are dark. We’ve just entered another COVID-19 lockdown as infection numbers rise. The aftermath of the U.S. election isn’t providing as much relief as we’d hoped. It’s really easy to get caught in the things that are hard right now. So, looking at something joyful and fun is so very welcome in this moment.
KM:
Agreed. I’m more than ready to enter the spirit of play. Joannie’s Playtime series was shot in 2017. There’s a way in which this work epitomizes the “before-times,” at least in my perception of it. I can’t help but imagine the multiple cross-border trips that Joannie made to Hallandale Beach, Florida, to make these images. I’m imagining the relative ease of travel then. No need for masks or return-trip quarantine. The photos are imbued with — or perhaps I’m projecting onto them — a certain pre-pandemic carefree ease and idealism. We no longer inhabit a world in which this project could play out as it did, a world in which Joannie could travel back and forth documenting Floridian snowbirds.