Other Photography (2026)

An extension of my ongoing reconsideration of photography and its history, Other Photography consists largely of alternate versions of historical images of immigrants into which I have infiltrated images of myself.

All four of my grandparents were immigrants. It’s my understanding they all came to North America in the midst of a surge of immigration that occurred in first decades of the 20th century. Many of the immigrants in this wave, including my grandparents, were fleeing religious, racial, political persecution among other issues. Family lore has it that my maternal grandparents reached North America by ship from Ukraine and entered the United States via the immigrant inspection and processing station on Ellis Island (adjacent to New York City) before they eventually relocated to Montréal.

Inspired, in part, by my family history as well as my daily interactions with many descendants of immigrants and with immigrants themselves, Other Photography is a critical reassessment of the implication of photography in the construction of the idea of the ‘Other.’ Specifically, it addresses the portraits taken of immigrants upon their arrival at Ellis Island in the early 1900s. These images, made by such photographers as Lewis Hine, Edwin Levick and Augustus Sherman, have been generally perceived as presenting their subjects in a positive light. Designed, for the most part, to assuage the anti-immigrant sentiment of the era, these pictures argue that ‘they’ (immigrants) are just like ‘us’ (ironically, also immigrants, but ones who simply arrived earlier). Nevertheless, simply saying ‘they’ are like ‘us’ generates a significant rift between ‘them’ and ‘us’. Currently there is greater recognition that such images, however well-intentioned, have the capacity for racializing their subjects and there is a growing tendency to regard these photos in a broader and contemporary context of photography, race, immigration and colonialism.

I have also included my amended version of Alfred Stieglitz’s The Steerage – his landmark photograph from 1907 in which he photographed a number of passengers in lowest rank of accommodation in the ship, who were presumably immigrants and were likely returning to Europe after being refused entry to America.

For over 35 years I have been deploying the leveling strategy of performing (or ‘becoming’) the subject of a number of carefully selected images from a distinct archive of photography in order to liberate the spectator from the assumption of the alleged truth and/or reality of the photograph. An accumulation of over 60 photographs (as well as stranger than a stranger in a strange land, a 10-minute, single-channel, HD video that addresses the same issues but in a more poetic manner), Other Photography creates a space for the viewer to confront how ‘Otherness’ was constructed in that era and how, even today, ‘Otherness’ continues to be used to provoke fear and hatred.

Acknowledgements

Many published historical and contemporary documents were consulted in the research for the photographs in Other Photography as well as the video stranger than a stranger in a strange land, a video that is an intrinsic element of project. In particular, the artist admired works by Lewis Hine, Edwin Levick, Augustus Sherman, Alfred Stieglitz and Francis Ford Coppola as well as publications by the Aperture Foundation, The New York Public Library, the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House and the Centre national de la photographie.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the Symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul – most of the studio work for Other Photography was accomplished within the framework the 41st edition of the event. The artist would especially like to thank Gabrielle Bouchard (the Director and Head Curator at the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul and the Symposium) and Anne Beauchemin (the Artistic Director for that year’s Symposium).

The artist also thanks to the following individuals and organizations that were of assistance in the research and production of Other Photography: Bertrand Carrière, Louis Lussier, Juliette Nadeau, Phil Rose, Yasmine Tremblay and Centre Sagamie, Centre de production en art actuel.

Coming soon…

Coming soon…

For exhibition purposes, Other Photography is composed of over 60 photographs arranged on 4 large panels, each dedicated to the work of one of the four photographers who produced the original works. The installation is designed to resemble a historical, didactic display as if made with the original images and dealing with the issue of immigration from the point of view from the early 1900s. The 4 panels can be scaled, printed and arranged in to accommodate various modes of presentation (indoors and outdoors) and available wall spaces (although the minimum linear wall space needed would be about 7.5 metres/25.5 feet, exclusive of the video). And stranger than a stranger in a strange land, the 10-minute, single-channel, HD video, should be looped and shown on a mid-size or larger monitor with headphones or presented as a medium scale projection with a modest sound system. In either case, it is important that the video screen or projection be positioned close to the panels but in such a way so that the visitor cannot view both the photographs and the video simultaneously.

Edition:
Individual archival prints of the over 60 photographs will be produced for institutional and/or private collections and will be an edition of 6 signed archival prints as well as 2 sets of artists’ proofs.

In the U.S.A. please contact CLAMP in New York. In Canada or elsewhere, please contact the artist.