2016 Events at the IMC

Julie received a PhD in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), at the University of London in 2014. Her research focuses on historical photography in Sierra Leone, West Africa and the diaspora. She has taught numerous courses in these fields at the Art Gallery of Ontario, as well as Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU), University of Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier University, and York University. Currently, Julie is a Rebanks Postdoctoral Fellow at the Royal Ontario Museum researching the various engagements of black/African audiences with the African Gallery and the photographic history of Blacks in Canada.

Using The Image Centre’s inaugural exhibition, Archival Dialogues, as a case-study, Doina will illustrate both the artistic and research methodologies employed when working with archival collections. Doina will also be joined by an artist from this exhibition, who will share what it’s like to create new work using an archive, in this case, the The Image Centre’s Black Star Collection. Seating is limited; please arrive early. Everyone attending the talk will be going home with a copy of our publication, Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection.

This digital projection features over 45 works from the prestigious Black Star Collection of twentieth-century photo-reportage of the struggle for racial equality, mainly during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Featuring dozens of renowned image-makers, including Bob Fitch, W. Eugene Smith and Werner Wolff, this project also highlights the important role photographers played in the visual representation of this period of history. This three-day celebration begins at the RIC on March 22, with a reception from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. The presentation travels to the Student Learning Centre (SLC) on March 23 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and the Mattamy Athletic Centre (MAC) on March 24 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

The Tanenbaum Lecture Series and the International Issues Discussion Series present: Susan Meiselas
Photographer/Magnum Photos
Kurdistan In the Shadow of History
Gathering Photographs from the Frontlines

Join renowned Magnum photos legend Susan Meiselas for a discussion on her recent project combining the role of historian and photographer in recovering a historical record of Kurdistan. When we go out into the world, the “field” – it’s much like being in an archive; you don’t know what you will find, how long you will be drawn to stay or how often you’ll return. My journey to Kurdistan began in 1991 when history pulled me to cross the Iran-Iraq border, the same road on which the Kurds had just fled. The process of my discovery and engagement with the Kurdish people had a number of defining stages, as both ideas and frameworks evolved. First documenting the Anfal campaign, then gathering archival material, creating a book and exhibition, and finally developing akaKurdistan.com as a virtual place for collective memory and exchange.

Digging became my metaphor, documenting the present to reveal the past. Skeletons lack the muscle and membrane, much like photographs, without the stories that surround them. It was when people appeared holding pictures of loved ones that had disappeared, that the concept to gather a visual history of the Kurds was conceived. – Susan Meiselas

The exhibition originates in images of passive political resistance gathered from The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Black Star Collection and other sources. At times deceptively peaceful, the photographs express an imbalance and struggle between the police officers and the limp bodies of protestors being forced to move.

Scotiabank Photography Award: Angela Grauerholz presents more than seventy works, spanning the 1980s to the present, of this celebrated artist, whose photographs have consistently explored the persistence yet unreliability of cultural memory through representation of archives, libraries and museums.

I Am My Family: Photographic Memories and Fictions is a family album of traditional portrait photographs with an unconventional twist: the only subject being Goldchain himself. In an elaborate process involving genealogical research, the use of makeup, hair styling, costumes, and props, Goldchain transforms himself into his ancestors and captures their personifications on camera. These constructed self-portraits trace the evolution of Jewish culture from tradition to modernity and invite viewers to engage in the narrative of both family history and memory.

What would it be like to live alongside one of the shapers of human events, in their youth, before they transformed history? In Fractured Land, we follow Caleb Behn, a young Dene lawyer who may become one of this generation’s great leaders, if he can discover how to reconcile the fractures within himself, his community and the world around him, blending modern tools of the law with ancient wisdom. As 350.org founder, Bill McKibben, puts it, "Anyone who can throw a hatchet and sue you is a force to be reckoned with."

The event is free. Arrive early to grab a seat. The Tanenbaum Lecture series is presented by The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) in partnership with the School of Image Arts, Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University).

André Kertész, 144 Views (1980) is an important example of Arnaud Maggs' early black and white sequential portraiture of artists and other cultural figures, and puts viewers face-to-face with a seminal figure of the 20th century. We recently acquired three sets of contact prints (one with working notes) of this seminal work.