Artists with their work program. Peterborough - Jul 9 - Aug 27, 1977 together with a group of artists.
Originator: Burnett.
Born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1940, Pamela Harris completed her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at Pomona College in 1962, and moved to Toronto in 1967. A self-taught photographer, her work has consistently engaged with issues of social activism and feminist themes. In 1984, she embarked on perhaps her best known project Faces of Feminism, spending the next several years photographing women across Canada. The resulting work was exhibited extensively around Canada, and a selection of 75 photographs was published by Second Story Press as the book Faces of Feminism in 1992.
Pamela Harris first visited Spence Bay in September 1972. In 1973, she spent another four months in Spence Bay, Northwest Territories (now Taloyoak, Nunavut) photographing the people and landscape of the community, conducting interviews, and establishing a community darkroom where she taught local residents (mostly Inuit craftswomen) how to process film and print their own photographs.
In addition to the monograph Another Way of Being, published in 1976, Harris’ Spence Bay. N.W.T. photographs were exhibited in 1974-76 at The Photographers' Gallery in Saskatoon, the David Mirvish Gallery in Toronto, and the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art in California. Photographs taken and printed by the Spence Bay residents as part of the darkroom project and natural dyes workshop were exhibited in 1974 at the Arctic Women's Workshop, a craft conference and exhibition held at the TD Centre in Toronto. An interview Harris conducted with Theresa Quaqjuaq, one of the Inuit women who participated in the darkroom project with Pamela Harris, was recorded and included in the 1973 Women’s Kit, a teaching aid Harris produced for the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) to be used in high schools and colleges for teaching women’s history in Canada. Excerpts of this interview, as well as an interview with Pamela Harris, were also aired on CBC Radio.
A small settlement near Boothia Peninsula (formerly Boothia Felix) in the Kitikmeot Region, Spence Bay was established by the Hudson Bay Company as a trading post in the 1950s, and settled by Netsilik and Dorset people. According to Harris, the population was about 400 in 1972-1973, most of whom had settled there within the past fifteen years, and many of whom spoke only Inuktitut. Her portraits of the people she met during her stay there and photographs of the landscape she encountered document the traditional ways of life and the rapid changes it underwent due to the cultural influences of the south.
Artists With Their Work Program. Exhibition with Dorothy Caldwell, Jean Thomas, Linda Wilson - C-7-10-5, Sault College, Algoma Fall Festival, Sault Ste. Marie, 5-8 Oct 1974; Atikokan ublic Library and Centennial Museum, Atikokan, 10 Oct - 25 Nov 1974; Toronto, 4 Jun 1975; Exhibition with Dorothy Caldwell, Shirley Clemmer, William Hodge, Helen Frances Gregor, David Kaye, Hilde Schreier, Don Stuart, Joanna Staniszkis at Dryden Public Library, Dryden, 30 Apr - 30 May 1976; Deep River Weaver's Guild, Deep River, 25-28 Feb 1977; Kenora Artists' Association, Kenora, 16-30 Apr 1977; The Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough, 18 May - 18 Jun 1978; The Lindsay Gallery, Lindsay, 28-29 May 1979; Northern College of Applied Arts and Technology, South Porcupine (Timmins) 1-22 Feb 1980; Kirkland Lake Art Club, Kirkland Lake, 4-25 Apr 1980; Atikokan Centennial Museum, Atikokan, 28 Jul - 23 Aug 1980; Belleville Public Library Gallery, Belleville, 29-30 Oct 1980.
Artists With Their Work Program. Kitchener - 2-23 Feb 1973; Oshawa - 4 May - 2 Jun 1974, together with Janny Fraser, William Hodge, Hilde Schreier, Shirley Clemmer, David Kaye, Kai Chan, Joanna Staniszkis, Guerite Steinbacher, Marie Aiken; Windsor - Nov 26-27, 1975; Dryden - Apr 30 - May 30, 1976 together with Helen Duffy, Dorothy Caldwell, Shirley Clemmer, William Hodge, David Kaye, Hilde Schreier, Don Stuart, Joanna Staniszkis; Sault Ste. Marie - Apr 22 - May 6, 1978 together with Tim De Rose.