September 14 – September 30, 2011
Opening: Wednesday, September 14, 7 – 11pm
Steam Whistle Gallery
255 Bremner Ave
(just south of the CN Tower)
Toronto, ON
416-362-2337 ext.246
info@steamwhistle.ca
www.steamwhistle.ca
Hours: Mon – Thurs 12 – 6, Fri – Sat 11 -6, Sun 11 – 5pm
Successfully envisioned, promoted and created this very well received, original photographic/multimedia documentary project, with a budget of $120K, exhibited in regional museums, prominently featured many times in national news and commended in the Ontario Legislature, May 4, 1993. www.hurmuses.com/exhibsite
Employed several assistants in the organization of exhibition openings, most notably the Scarborough Civic Centre reception on May 5, 1995, with a team of eight, organizing an all-day media event attended by 1000, featuring political speakers, including the Mayor of Scarborough and the Ontario Minister of Culture and three musical acts, including Big Rude Jake and Jughead and staffed with a volunteer crew of 15.
Exhibited in major institutional galleries and museums, including: The London Regional Museum, The Art Gallery of Windsor and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery
This exhibition is a tribute to that community, to my “Extended Family.” Drawing mainly on the van plant photographs, it also includes others, which were shot on earlier occasions, at parties, pares, and events. Its purpose is to give a human face to the jobs that were lost, to present the intangible losses that cannot figure in economist’s charts. Most important to me is that this plant closure be seen not as a displacement of 2800 jobs, but as the displacement of the 2800 people who worked them. It is also important that attention be paid not only to the economic tragedy, but also to the disruption and loss of the community, which was so important and vibrant a part of our lives. As Glen Seidman remarked to me on May 5, 1993 “I keep remembering that a while after I first started here, my girlfriend and I broke up. I was pretty upset about it, and one of the older guys that I worked with said, ‘don’t worry, after 20 years you might be with your 2nd or 3rd wife, but you’ll still have the same co-workers. And I keep thinking, he was right, I’ve worked here for 19 years, and there are guys that I’ve worked with all of that time that are with their 2nd or 3rd wives, but they still have the same co-workers, in fact, I still work with that same guy. Tomorrow, it’s over.”