Workplaces captured on camera
Photographer sees through the eyes of the working class
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
RANKIN INLET
Documentary photographer Martin Weinhold passed through Baker Lake and Rankin Inlet while putting the finishing touches to a new collection of black-and-white photographs depicting Canada's working class.
German photographer Martin Weinhold was collecting images in Kivalliq communities to be part of his fascinating 10-year project to capture working people across Canada this past week. - Darrell Greer/NNSL photo |
Entitled WorkSpace Canada, the photos explore the Canadian workplace from coast to coast to coast within a 10-year time frame, containing as many professional fields as possible across the country.
The striking photos of WorkSpace are contextualized portraits, depicting both the work itself and its environment.
Weinhold's collection currently contains about 1,800 selected photos of about 143 different occupational fields available for exhibition.
Weinhold said the finished book from the collection will, hopefully, be published in 2017.
He said anyone who gives a copy of the book to their children would allow them to flip through its pages and see all the possible ways of gainful employment in this day and age.
"That would be my ideal goal to achieve in the end," said Weinhold.
"I tie this to spacial relations.
"People work in offices, so I'm not about to produce hundreds of office photographs, but, rather, I look for the typical.
"Working in an insurance company office is very similar to administration, even for a mining company, so office work once is ticked off and this is how I work, representatively.
"I've been to an underground mine in Saskatchewan, which I really loved, maybe because there was so little to see, which is really kind of a relief for a photographer."
Weinhold said there was very little visual impact in the mine.
He said he would compare the darkness of the mine to a photographer, to that of silence to an opera composer.
"So, now I have a potash mine underground, so I won't be doing a diamond mine underground and so on, and so on.
"I will keep it at the potash mine because the spacial relation for workers underground is the same.
"An open-pit mine is different, which is what I did here in Nunavut at Aginco Eagle's Meadowbank mine near Baker Lake.
"There it's a different approach because it's work on the surface with huge dozers, just to give one idea of how my project works."
Weinhold said doing his work in smaller communities is a lot easier because people know each other, and he relies so much on on-the-spot research.
He said if he's very polite with his approach to someone, word travels faster in a small community and that really helps him with recommendations to someone who is pursuing a particular occupation he's interested in.
"It takes a lot longer to set up a network in a city.
"Even though there are more people, sometimes it's actually harder to get referred to the next business."
The German photographer said work is the most important aspect of today's society.
He said even though everything is almost always about jobs and the economy, somehow it's not really reflected in an artistic way.
"Whenever I come to a place, people are surprised I take that much interest and want to make them the focus of attention," said Weinhold.
"They think they're just working as a cashier or driving a garbage truck, but this is the essential fabric our society is made of.
"I was extremely intrigued by what people do; how do they use their lifetime, which is, basically, what you spend when you are at work.
"This was the spark for me - what do people do to make a living and how do they find the compromise between giving away all these hours to be paid, while, at the same time, making that something be fulfilling."
Weinhold said in many ways his photos are a way of introducing the country to itself because of Canada's large distances, but without the use of landscapes. He said people are the most interesting aspect of a country, not landscapes.
"My final collection should be done by October of 2016, so, first it's this portrait book of Canada that I want to be published in 2017 for the sesquicentennial anniversary.
"There should also be a constant collection online by than, accessible to the public.
"I don't regret a single day of this project, but I would never do it again.
"The personal sacrifice was more than I expected, with the past 10 years of my life being completely dedicated to this project, and that has taken quite a toll on my life.
"I'm very happy I did it, and I'm now extremely rich through my experiences - from fishing in a small lobster boat, to baling hay and working underground - but I never expected it be so totally engrossing and difficult."
