In consultation with a wide range of Canadian curators and artists, the Creative Director at the School of the Photographic Arts: Ottawa (SPAO), Jonathan Hobin and I co-curated the 2019 CANADIANA exhibition, Summer Camp. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada, the exhibition features lens-based artworks produced over the last five decades by LGBTQ2+ artists from across the country.
Highlighting camp as both a sensibility and a site in the Canadian landscape, the exhibition features works by Steven Beckly, David Buchan, Colin Campbell, Dayna Danger, Shawna Dempsey & Lorri Millan, B.G-Osborne, Michelle Mohabeer, Kent Monkman and Paul Wong. A text by art writer and curator Daniella Sanader accompanies the exhibition.
In conjunction with the exhibition, SPAO partnered with Qu’ART and the Ottawa International Writers Festival to host the London-based artist, writer and designer Paul Harfleet and The Pansy Project, an important international anti-homophobia initiative. Harfleet has planted almost 300 individual pansies at sites of homophobic abuse around the world. The Ottawa component of the project premiered in SPAO’s Photo-Synthesis Garden on May 10.
SPAO is an Official Event Partner with the Canadian Tulip Festival - Festival canadien des tulipes in recognition of the fact that the festival was created by the photographer Malak Karsh. Summer Camp continues until Canada Day, Monday July 1.
