OA #8 - Creative Photographer - Rodney Graham

Conceptual Photography is all over Vancouver. There are a lot of museum exhibitions, gallery shows, conversations about conceptual photography. I felt immersed in this when I lived there. I had some great opportunities to some really amazing photographic art work.

One of the Vancouver photography art stars is Rodney Graham (1949, Canada.) Graham's work spans photography, video, sculpture, and a punk rock band. His work is layered, references art history and intellectual history, is smart, creates personas, and is very, very funny.

One work which has really stuck with me was Rodney Graham's "Millennial Time Machine" (2003) - a camera obscura. I was teaching a summer intensive course for incoming first year students, and I brought them to see Rodney Graham's camera obscura at the Belkin Gallery at the University of British Columbia. This piece is housed in a converted 19th century horse-drawn carriage, and is highly immersive and interactive, as groups of 4 enter and sit in the carriage, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the darkness to see the ghostly and beautiful camera obscura image of a tree, upside down, projected in front of them. This piece is often outside the Belkin Gallery at UBC, but I was lucky enough to catch this piece inside during Rodney Graham's retrospective at the gallery. The piece showcases old photographic technology and techniques, and showcases it in a new way for a new crowd.