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Through her eyes

Kathleen Lippa
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Mar 01/04) - For Kerry McCluskey, the camera lens is a powerful tool.

As a newspaper journalist and passionate photographer, McCluskey has travelled the North making plenty of contacts along the way -- both in the photographic and interpersonal sense.

NNSL Photo

Kerry McCluskey heads the third annual Film Fatale, a photography exhibit featuring the work of Northern women. - Kathleen Lippa/NNSL photo


Four years ago, McCluskey decided the women of the North needed a new venue to showcase their photography skills.

The exhibit, now in its third year, features work of Northern women. This year her vision is titled Film Fatale.

The work of 18 women from Nunavut, Nunavik and the Northwest Territories will be presented at the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum in Iqaluit. The show opens Saturday.

"I've been a feminist activist for years," McCluskey said, sitting in the living room of her unique A-Frame home in Apex.

"I wanted something to celebrate International Women's Day. So I organized a collective of women's photography, and the response was overwhelming."

The show has been able to keep opening year after year because of the remarkably fresh, diverse work McCluskey receives from photographers located across the North.

An interesting feature of the show is the fact McCluskey doesn't actually see what the pieces are until she is hanging them. She also accepts work right up until the last minute.

"Why would I turn people away?" she said.

The criteria for being accepted is simple: you have to be a woman living in the North and your work must either be a photograph or inspired heavily by the lens. Ten pieces is the limit.

McCluskey doesn't want to have to start cutting pieces from the show for space.

Five communities will be represented in the show: Yellowknife, Fort Simpson, Inukjuak, Inuvik, and Iqaluit.

It is also important for McCluskey that there are no boundaries put on what women can and can't shoot.

She has seen everything in the past few shows -- from weddings to awe-inspiring scenes from Antarctica.

McCluskey is taking part in the show once again, this year presenting a series of black and white images of women doing what they like to do best.

"Women in their environment," is how she describes it. "I might do some eight by 10s. Smaller pieces."