Regeneration | Piguttaugiallavalliajuk | Ussanitauten:
Seven Northern Labrador Photographers
Now on display at the Central Labrador YMCA, Happy Valley-Goose Bay through May 2023
Featuring works by:
Eldred Allen*, Gary Andersen, Holly Andersen, Wayne Broomfield,
Samantha Jacque, Melissa Tremblett, Jennie Williams
Patricia Grattan, Curator
Jessica Winters, Special Project Coordinating Curator
This special exhibition was developed and presented by the 2021 Bonavista Biennale, The Tonic of Wildness. Its intent was to provide a public platform for Indigenous photographers from Northern Labrador, who responded to an invitation to reflect on humans’ relationships to “wildness” in the present era.
Six are from Nunatsiavut, the autonomous Inuit region of Northern Labrador, one is from the Innu community of Sheshatshiu. Most are self-taught. Some use sophisticated equipment or digital editing tools to construct more personal images while others keep it simpler. But all have grown up within Canada’s “wild” and most continue to live and work there, nourished by traditional cultures and practices rooted in Labrador’s immense land mass and fierce fresh and salt waters. The linking threads in these works are woven by people with deep knowledge of place: the habits of birds and animals, seasonal cycles for hunting and gathering, how to gauge ice thickness or navigate seemingly trackless terrain and brutal weather. This lived practical knowledge enhances their ability to respond to the astonishing and varied beauty of the natural environment—and to recognize the urgency of respecting and protecting it. The photographers are working within a now self-governing culture with a future they are helping to shape.
Download the exhibition booklet
(text available in English, French, Innu and Inuktitut)
* Copyright Eldred Allen, courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery
The Regeneration Tour is a Come Home Year 2022 Project funded through the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts and Recreation.
