inspiring positive change
In 1999, I ventured into Edmonton’s inner city. I was fresh out of university, confused and disillusioned. Everything was out of kilter. I knew I had to get off the beaten path to find my way. I decided to channel my feelings into a constructive outlet, namely a photographic documentary of the human face of poverty in my hometown.
What started as a visual examination of my messy backyard turned into a 20-year exploration of life at the margins. In the course of this journey, I witnessed first hand the structural inequalities present in Edmonton.
The inner city is a metaphor. It’s a city within a city, but it’s also part of our collective consciousness. For some, it represents a stern warning against sloth and other perceived failures of character; for others, it’s the ultimate expression of human avarice, with small subsets of society hoarding the majority of the resources.
These photos represent my coming of age. They are memory sketches of an earlier time: snapshots and flashbacks in film. They are also archival evidence of lives and places that have ceased to be. Many of the individuals depicted have died in the intervening years. And many of the locations where these photographs were taken have been demolished and redeveloped as part of the great cycle of destruction and renewal in the city.