Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 19/99) - A sure sign of a long-time Northerner is the ownership of a stash. A stash is a pile of old stuff acquired at little or no cost, stored away for the day it will come in handy.

Chris Rodgers' stash is kept in a warehouse in Kam Lake, where he recently agreed to speak to Yklife. In contrast to traditional Northern stashes (carcasses of heavy machinery, leftover building material, old office equipment etc.) Rodgers' is composed entirely of audio visual equipment -- old speakers, still and video cameras, turntables, millions of feet of videotape, lights and thousands of parts.

Rodgers first came to Yellowknife in 1979, from Toronto. He was here for a summer job to earn enough to go to the Ontario College of Art. But the OCA wasn't what he thought it would be.

CR: It didn't work out. I tried it for six months. I got accepted into OCA on my portfolio of photographs, which was a mistake, because the school was more about painting and drawing. What I really wanted to do was more photography.

So what I did was, after a couple of months I blew off all the courses and spent all my time in their darkroom. When the money ran out, I quit and came back here.

Yklife: Some people into photography are more into the equipment than the art of it. Which interests you more?

CR: Definitely the art side. I have a collection of cameras, everything from 16-millimetre still cameras to panoramic cameras to large format cameras, but that comes second for me.

When I was really gung-ho, I was using plastic Brownie cameras. I've got a whole box of them here. I would attach an electronic flash to it, which was never intended to be on the camera, and I would go out in Toronto and take pictures of street people.

I was very much in their faces. It was a style I wouldn't use now. I was a kid, a teenager.

I had to fend off people and basically run for my life a few times. That was the idea behind using those cameras, they were worthless, so it didn't matter whether they were dropped or taken away.

I still use those cameras, but not that way. I always ask for permission. Everybody knows everybody here, and you don't want to piss people off.

Yklife: What kind of photographic subjects are you focusing on these days?

CR: I've taken a lot of pictures of people at parties and in bars, where everybody's kind of happy and jolly. It's usually a result of the alcohol. So, I don't take pictures like that anymore.

I just took in six rolls of black-and-white portraits I took in Rae, mostly of family members. The option was there to go to a wedding and take some pictures. It didn't happen but, thinking back on it, it would have been a good opportunity to get some pictures.

That's why I always have a camera. You can't plan these events. Things come up very quickly, and it's good to have a camera if you want to document them.

Yklife: You've got a lot of stuff here. Have you always been a packrat?

CR: Yes. I've always been interested in electronics and all the stuff that goes along with it. Almost everything in here is from Yellowknife, from government surplus, garage sales, other places.

Some day I'm going to go through this warehouse. There's 50 drawers there and each one has about 50 things in it, so there's thousands of things in them. I sort of know what's there. Old photo cartridges, survival gear and tone arms. But I have to go through it and organize it.

Yklife: The stuff you're doing on your own, why are you doing it?

CR: It's mostly for myself. I get a kick out of it, sitting down and watching it with friends, things that we can relate to and have in common. It's like home movies.

Yklife: Do you plan the stuff you do for yourself or is it just your reaction to the situations as they occur?

CR: I can plan things to a certain extent. If you're shooting a documentary film or industrial video, you have to have a defined story for your client.

I don't really have a client when I do stuff for myself. If people don't like it, I don't really care. I know some people are quite upset about parts of some of my videos.

Yklife: What parts?

CR: For example, I did a video that very few people have seen on the Queen's visit, and there were some rude farting noises in parts of it. It was all meant as a joke, really. It wasn't meant to be against the Queen or anything. But it disturbed some people.

Yklife: You can understand why, can't you?

CR: No. Everybody farts. I'm sure the Queen has let a few royal ones go herself.

Yklife: This experimental stuff, don't you think it would fly further in a place like Toronto?

CR: People have said that, but I was back in Toronto about a month ago, and I don't want to live there. I don't mind visiting for a while. I'm convinced that when a city gets to a certain size, there's just too many people it becomes unmanageable.

Yklife: The stuff you're doing in your spare time, don't you have aspirations to get paid for doing it?

CR: No. I prefer not getting paid for it. My work's too personal. Nobody would get it. And I've survived. I'm still in Yellowknife and it's not a cheap place to live.

Yklife: Is it something only a small group of people would understand?

CR: I don't know about understand, it's just having the patience to watch it.

Yklife: What's your favourite video work you've done so far?

CR: There's tons of stuff. There's stuff that the NWT Television Society produced. That was these five people doing community access cable about 10 years ago.

We did 12 half-hour shows, which practically no one saw. It was all stuff that was taking place in Yellowknife 10 years ago, plus a couple of experimental videos in between.

The Snow King (Anthony Foliot) was the interviewer and host, but it was before he was known as the Snow King.

Yklife: Is there any one recurring message that's coming through in your stuff?

CR: I guess it's sometimes to show the absurdity of day-to-day life. Not in a cynical way. I catch myself a lot of times looking at a situations like frames of photographs. Even though things are moving around in it, it's still like a picture. I'll take a picture of it and then try to figure it out later on.

Yklife: You said you're want to do more still photography.

CR: I have the equipment to do it, the resources, I just have to find a place to set up a darkroom. But I can't seem to find the time, especially now, working full time (at the Native Communications Society). I'm back in the mindset where I have to make money.

Yklife: That trap.

CR: Yeah, I think it's a bit of a trap, but I can't seem to avoid it. Everybody else is in it.