The Great Photographer VIC
Content
If there's one theme that connects all my work, I think it's that of land-lessness; how land makes people into who they are and what happens to them when they lose it and thus lose their identities.
LARRY TOWELL
THE GREAT PHOTOGRAPHER
Larry Towell
Larry Towell The son of an auto body repairman, was raised in a large family in rural Ontario. He is also known as a poet, and oral historian. He is one of the rare photojournalists who travels reluctantly and only when the subject is very important to him. While studying Visual Arts at York University, Toronto, he was given a camera and taught how to process black and white film. He brought the camera home to Ontario because there was no place he wanted to photograph more. In 1984 Towell became a freelance photographer and writer. His work focussed on the homeless, exile and peasant rebellion. Some of his projects included the Nicaraguan Contra war, the relatives of the disappeared in Guatemala, and American Vietnam War veterans, who had returned to Vietnam to rebuild the country.
Larry Towell captures the desperation of those living behind Israel’s security barrier.
Nazlat Isa, West Bank, 2004 The wall divides the Arab village of Nazlat Isa.
Abu Dis, West Bank, 2003 The wall divides the West Bank village of Adu Dis in the suburbs of East Jerusalem.
A-Tur, Jerusalem, 2004
MEXICO 1994, La Batea, Zacatecas The Mennonite Community
World Press Photo of the Year: 1993
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories
USA, New York City, September 11th, 2001
“ I realized that Americans had never before seen their own bodies torn to shreds, nor their buildings tumble to the ground”
Beggarsgrave
Afghanistan 2008
Larry Towell and novelist Ace Atkins set out to cover the wake of Hurricane Katrina. An intimate one week road trip through a strange landscape became a tribute to human endurance.
Katrina
The World From My Front Porch
"When I was an adolescent, my father once scolded me for wanting to drive to Florida with a friend. It was too far from home, and I would be corrupted by the distance. I was 16. He hated travel. The world was his front porch."
“The World from My Front Porch”
“Intimacy, the antithesis of violence, is much harder to document than war, because it is invisible."
Dwellings isolates a selection of photographs Towell has made while working on a number of separate projects that are all investigations of land and belonging. Believing that land makes people who they are, and that the loss of land is synonymous with a loss of identity, Towell has engaged with families living in dire conditions in such places as Beirut, the Gaza Strip, South Africa and Afghanistan. This exhibition looks at traces of the human condition as evidenced by remnants of the inhabitants’ existence.
LARRY TOWELL
THE GREAT PHOTOGRAPHER
Larry Towell
Larry Towell The son of an auto body repairman, was raised in a large family in rural Ontario. He is also known as a poet, and oral historian. He is one of the rare photojournalists who travels reluctantly and only when the subject is very important to him. While studying Visual Arts at York University, Toronto, he was given a camera and taught how to process black and white film. He brought the camera home to Ontario because there was no place he wanted to photograph more. In 1984 Towell became a freelance photographer and writer. His work focussed on the homeless, exile and peasant rebellion. Some of his projects included the Nicaraguan Contra war, the relatives of the disappeared in Guatemala, and American Vietnam War veterans, who had returned to Vietnam to rebuild the country.
Larry Towell captures the desperation of those living behind Israel’s security barrier.
Nazlat Isa, West Bank, 2004 The wall divides the Arab village of Nazlat Isa.
Abu Dis, West Bank, 2003 The wall divides the West Bank village of Adu Dis in the suburbs of East Jerusalem.
A-Tur, Jerusalem, 2004
MEXICO 1994, La Batea, Zacatecas The Mennonite Community
World Press Photo of the Year: 1993
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories
USA, New York City, September 11th, 2001
“ I realized that Americans had never before seen their own bodies torn to shreds, nor their buildings tumble to the ground”
Beggarsgrave
Afghanistan 2008
Larry Towell and novelist Ace Atkins set out to cover the wake of Hurricane Katrina. An intimate one week road trip through a strange landscape became a tribute to human endurance.
Katrina
The World From My Front Porch
"When I was an adolescent, my father once scolded me for wanting to drive to Florida with a friend. It was too far from home, and I would be corrupted by the distance. I was 16. He hated travel. The world was his front porch."
“The World from My Front Porch”
“Intimacy, the antithesis of violence, is much harder to document than war, because it is invisible."
Dwellings isolates a selection of photographs Towell has made while working on a number of separate projects that are all investigations of land and belonging. Believing that land makes people who they are, and that the loss of land is synonymous with a loss of identity, Towell has engaged with families living in dire conditions in such places as Beirut, the Gaza Strip, South Africa and Afghanistan. This exhibition looks at traces of the human condition as evidenced by remnants of the inhabitants’ existence.
