In September of 2016, shortly after getting married, my partner and I took a long road trip through the western United States. About half way through our trip, at a motel in a small town in Nevada, we discussed concealing our relationship for the sake of our safety. Afterwards, we both wondered if we’d been foolish.
Once we returned home, I started to rephotograph the photographs I had taken on the trip. I was trying to think through the relationship between memory and perception in order to understand what had prompted the conversation.
The project was turned into a book, I Wish U Were Here, and was included in an exhibition at The Image Centre in Toronto, ON.
The book was supported by the Edmonton Arts Council.
View the project here.
Through image and text, Notes On Digging A Hole is a meditation on labour and value as it relates to the body. Drawing primarily on personal narrative and the works of Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, the essay questions the categories that dictate who should do certain kinds of work and how they should be compensated for it.
Published by Glass House Press.
Designed by Sergio Serrano
Edited by Jason Purcell and Matthew Stepanic
At The Same Time is a self-published book that represents the culmination of a five-year project by six artists. Collecting the work of Steven Beckly and Dylan MacNeil (Toronto, Canada), Ted Kerr (Brooklyn, NY) and Zachary Ayotte (Edmonton, AB), and Colin Quinn and Oisín Share (Manchester, UK), the project reveals commonalities that transcend borders.
Through the internet, the six of us become aware of each other through sites like Flickr, where we would share our work. Over time, it became obvious that we were all speaking to each other (intentionally or not) through our photographs. The moments of softness, intimacy, sex and domesticity reveal a world that each of us contributed to, simultaneoulsy and at a distance, where understandings of gender and power begin to shift.
The work was exhibited in Edmonton, Toronto, and Manchester. Then, in 2012, we published the book.
Features essays by AA Bronson, Paul Mgapi Sepuya, and Sholem Krishtalka.
Concluding Essay
Book Photographs by Steven Beckly