Vancouver's Capture Photography Festival, an installation of photos on billboards, features A Journey Reframed by Miranda Barnes.Jocelyne Junker/Courtesy of Capture Photography Festival
The cherry blossoms are out, the skies are light past 6 p.m., and once again there is art on the billboards along a stretch of the Arbutus Greenway. It must be spring in Vancouver.
Last year’s billboards – a public art project of the Capture Photography Festival, which launches this weekend – caused a stir. Works by Vancouver artist Steven Shearer, who represented Canada at the 2011 Venice Biennale, were covered over after “vitriolic” complaints from some members of the public. Some people found the images – depicting people asleep – too creepy for the public space. This caused some eye-rolling in the contemporary art community.
But onto this year, and a new, perhaps more community-friendly project has emerged along the Greenway between Burrard and Fir Streets, which I visited this week on foot. Miranda Barnes’s A Journey Reframed, depicts moments of life in the United States these past few years – small intimacies blown up onto billboards, creating quiet announcements. Little, huge pieces of life.
Tory and Tyra depicts twins in matching tutus and hair buns photographed on their way to a ballet recital.Miranda Barnes/Courtesy of the Artist
Ms. Barnes, 27, is a Caribbean-American photographer who divides her time between Brooklyn, where she was born, and Austin, Tex. She was on a completely different career path, studying humanities and justice, when a photograph she took received wide attention. She seized the opportunity to make her passion – photography – her career. She makes her living shooting for commercial clients (Adidas, Apple, Nike) and media (The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue), but also has an artistic practice. This is her first show in Canada, a country she has yet to visit.
Isolde Brielmaier, who curated the Capture show, calls Ms. Barnes an astute observer who is committed to social justice and equity issues, both in her work and in the world – including her subject matter. “They’re Black people and they’re there and they’re taking up space,” Dr. Brielmaier says. “And historically we have not been afforded that opportunity.”
In one image, Tory and Tyra (2018), twins in matching tutus and hair buns are photographed on their way to a ballet recital. Ms. Barnes originally noticed the girls a few years ago on the subway with their mother. “I just saw this woman,” says Ms. Barnes, “a Black woman in construction gear with two twins by her side. I thought, oh my God, I’ve got to photograph this.” She is still taking photos of the twins, who are now into cheerleading.
Lindsay at Pioneer Farm, Tonkawa Land features a glamorous woman (Ms. Barnes’s sister-in-law) in a kerchief appearing pensive among trees stripped of their leaves during a Texas winter.Jocelyne Junker/Courtesy of Capture Photography Festival
A stand-out colour photograph, Tiffany and Gio (2018), depicts a young couple leaning against a chain-link fence, staring down the camera. At a New York park during the last week of summer break, Ms. Barnes noticed the couple with a group of friends, who had been swimming and asked if she could take their picture. “It was just a moment,” Ms. Barnes says. “I’d been watching them leave this pool and leave summer behind.”
Lindsay at Pioneer Farm / Tonkawa Land (2021) features a glamorous woman (Ms. Barnes’s sister-in-law) in a kerchief appearing pensive among trees stripped of their leaves during a Texas winter. In Vancouver, the billboard rises from a mess of bushes by a length of community gardens.
Bartlett, Texas depicts an old convenience store that has seen better days.Jocelyne Junker/Courtesy of Capture Photography Festival
Ms. Barnes also photographs structures. Bartlett, Texas (2020) spotlights an old convenience store that has seen better days. It is installed in Vancouver across the way from a residential building covered by the ubiquitous blue tarp of reconstruction – another building that has seen better days.
Dr. Brielmaier is deputy director of the New Museum, guest curator at the International Centre for Photography and professor of critical studies in the department of photography, imaging and emerging media at New York University. She says where most people might see a decrepit or dishevelled house, feel bad about it for a moment and then keep going, Ms. Barnes somehow “sees it and frames it and is able to kind of capture it from her mind moving into her camera. And you get these poetic, impactful images.”
The world is having a terrible moment, so I have been reaching for small pleasures. One, for me, is biking along the Arbutus Greenway – flat and welcoming at any time, but particularly soothing now, with art along the way to keep me company and keep me thinking. I’m hoping for a sunny weekend soon.
A Journey Reframed will be installed on seven billboards along the Arbutus Greenway until May 22.
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