There are some new, larger-than-life faces at Arts Umbrella – but only until the end of April.
For the second year, Arts Umbrella is participating in Capture Photography Festival. It’s an opportunity for students, staff, and our AU community to experience and engage with photography. And those new faces? They are public installations by photographer Lynol Lui at our South Surrey and Granville Island facilities.
The installations – one indoor, one outdoor – transform both locations with large-scale black and white photographs. Called Outside Darkroom, the striking exhibit aims to create impact and spark dialogue “around the medium, process, [and] subject matter”. And as the pieces are open to all, they increase overall accessibility to art.
Earlier this month, and also part of Capture, Arts Umbrella’s young photographers had the opportunity to contribute to a group exhibit at Remington Gallery. “The act of creation, presentation and consumption” displayed a range of digital and film images from our photography students, and gallery visitors were invited to use smartphones or gallery Polaroid cameras to interact with the work and space.
Remington Gallery owner and photographer Alex Waber helped curate the exhibit.
“It’s a rewarding thing to see your work up on the wall,” says Waber, who teaches at Arts Umbrella. He and fellow photography instructors Kristen Roos, Kate Henderson, and Lynol Lui mentored students to create pieces for the exhibit. The festival was also a catalyst for AU photography classes to discuss instant production, Snapchat, Instagram, and temporary art.
For his class, Waber arranged a shoot with a model, and he remarks on the student excitement around “seeing something they’ve created.”
But beyond Arts Umbrella students, Capture is about photography fans of all ages. In the closing day of the Remington exhibit alone, the space welcomed everyone from a senior photographer to a four-year-old – who happily grabbed the Polaroid and posted his shots alongside those contributed by dozens of other gallery visitors.
Waber says he particularly likes Capture for its “experimental” aspects. Little ones discovering Polaroids? It’s all part of the experiment.
More Capture Photography Festival
Capture is a wide-reaching festival, and you can also find Waber’s work at GAM Gallery, instructor Katie Huisman’s at Remington, and Michael Slobodian’s Ballet BC 30th anniversary exhibit at Scotiabank Dance Centre.