Stephen Wilkes

“To me, this is the most exciting moment in the history of photography. The potential to explore things that we’ve never done in a still photograph are so great. . . I’ve been very conscious of using new technologies in the medium to push the medium outward …I find that by creating images that have an inherent beauty, people will look at them for just a second, and if I get you for just a second, then I think I can make you think a little deeper about what I’m showing you . . . The power of the single image is the way.”

[Stephen Wilkes in conversation with Peter Simpson of the Ottawa Citizen, prior to his artist exchange events in Ottawa, Canada, in November of 2015]

Art in Embassies and the Embassy of the United States in Ottawa, in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), welcomed renowned American photographer Stephen Wilkes for the fourth lecture in the Contemporary Conversations series on November 19, 2015.

Contemporary Conversations brings internationally recognized American artists to Canada for a series of public lectures at the NGC intended to stimulate conversation around issues that transcend borders, and topics that inspire, teach, and create connections. Photographs by Wilkes were also on display as part of the Art in Embassies exhibition; Wilkes’ photograph Corridor # 9, Island 3, Ellis Island (1998) was featured at the U.S. Embassy Residence and Presidential Inauguration, Day to Night (2013), was hanging at the U.S. Embassy.

While in Ottawa, Wilkes was able to reach numerous audiences; he was a guest on the CBC radio program All in a Day, as well as CTV’s Morning Ottawa. He also participated in an interactive conversation held at the U.S. Embassy with an audience made up primarily of post-secondary students in international relations, political science, and photography. The discussion focused on the theme of “Photography as an Agent for Change.” The Contemporary Conversation at the NGC auditorium that same evening continued this theme, which was explored in more detail during the discussion between Stephen Wilkes and U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Bruce Heyman, before an engaged audience. The talk was simulcast to the Gallery’s lecture hall for the overflow crowd.

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It’s so good to have you here in Ottawa and have you part of the Contemporary Conversations

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series that we are doing.

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And you know, to have an iconic
photographer, artist is a real treat for us.

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Steve you’ve really touched me personally
with a lot of your work.

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We’re here, though, right here with Ellis Island and did your work really begin with Ellis Island?

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Did the impact of Ellis Island
really change you?

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In particular, this photograph was a real game changer. The ability to make a

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photograph that would inspire people to
want to give and save a place like Ellis Island.

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Understanding that there was history in
these walls, in these rooms very much

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forgotten history. And so I discovered
through Ellis that I could take not

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just photographs that had beauty,
intrinsic beauty but that had a subtext that

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was humanity in many of the rooms I
photographed. And that was a very powerful

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learning lesson because it made me
realize that my work could actually force

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change and create social change. And it was through that experience that I began to

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have a real need to want to experience
that every time I created art. That there

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was, it reached a different level
for me as an artist. You know, that I

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could bring the things that were part of
my social consciousness and share that with others.

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So where are we here? What is this this?

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This corridor number nine is where all the doctors and nurses would travel back and forth

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to get to various infectious disease wards. So it is very special and powerful meaning in terms of the context

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of what occurred there.

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And incredible powerful in terms how you caught light.

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The right side of the photograph,
everything was lit, brightly glowing, but

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everything was dead and left side was
was dark and everything was living. And

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suddenly this metaphor for me came. It’s
so clear that this place was about life

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and it was about death. And then the glow at the end

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reinforced that you’re traveling
someplace else, and I think that’s what

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the immigrant experience was.

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So you effected change, you did this whole series

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with Ellis Island. You then went on to
Katrina and Sandy, and then you did this

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new series, Day to Night, which is really
prominent your work now. How did you do that?

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The concept is that I, as technology evolved, I wasn’t interested in

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just using tools to reproduce the same
pictures I made with film.

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I saw this is an opportunity to push the
medium of photography outward.

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And I began to explore the idea of
changing time in a single photograph so

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I photograph from a single point of view for 15 hours on average and I shoot

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literally 1500 images, edit them down to
about 50, and then I decide where day

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begins and night ends. And on that what I
call the time vector all the best

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moments of the morning, midday, afternoon, and evening gets seamlessly get layered together

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into one single photograph. I’m trying to
put a face on time. I’m actually looking

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at something that we all feel
intuitively but never to get our hands around.

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That’s exciting. Yes.

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Thanks again for being here.

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Thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure.

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Nice to see you.