Shannyn Lee Porter

Lost Rivers

These charcoal and gouache drawings on photographic prints work to re-contextualize our understanding of past and present. Building on the Lost River Walks research, the work focuses on the area once called Ashbridge’s Bay, Creek, and Marsh. This wetland system was one of the largest in Eastern Canada, over five square kilometres. It was poisoned, then filled for industry, and the creek photographed in 1910 was gone by 1913. This is one of many waterways in Toronto that have been altered, removed, or sunken beneath our feet. Even still, the filled river bed forms roads students take to school today and Eastern Avenue by TTC’s Russell Yard hosts flood warning signs where trout once spawned and waterfowl nested.

Questioning the Archives

Sight has a verisimilitude whether that is deserved or not. This sense of veracity has been in my artwork since I began taking old photos back to where they were first captured. The problem with the 'truthfulness' of images is that it depends entirely on the context around the image for us to create meaning. I have tried in the past to expand that context to the present by weaving the found photos onto new images of the same place. With this new series I am looking to represent images whose context or understanding is questionable, whose histories have been misrepresented. Researching into these photos it has become clear that the names and information ascribed to them in the archives are misleading or misinformed. With the guidance of experts, in renaming the photos I hope to re-establish their subjects' correct identities.

Past on Context: Toronto, ON

This project began as an investigation of my grandmother's life as a young girl in Toronto. My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's disease from the time I was ten years old, and as a result, I feel I never truly knew her. When she passed away she left behind a scrapbook of photographs, some of which were of her childhood in Toronto. As I travelled to these places, I became interested in the history of Toronto. This led me to extensively research Toronto's history to find several locations which have experienced significant change. The historical images contrast the past with the present, attempting to portray these little known histories.

Each photograph was taken back to its respective location to compose a new photograph with the same perspective of the site, while showing more of the surrounding area. The new photographs serve as the background on which the art is built. The old photograph is then drawn with charcoal and gouache onto the print so that the perspectives of both subjects are the same, furthering the integration of past and present to form a space adjacent to time. The purpose of this is to construct a two-layered image which places the past as the subject and the present as a backdrop. This solidifies both physically, and intellectually, the separation of time. Building the old on top of the new serves to both subvert the notion of progress, and correctly place the emphasis within the work. The idea of drawing as not only image-making, but also as discovery, furthers this investigation. This is not a study of the new and novel landscape, it is an investigation of the old and antique moment.

Rings of Time: St. Clair West

A photograph is never an instant of time, it is a period, a moment. The rings of a tree that grows in a seasonal climate are much the same. As a tree grows it reacts to the environment, growing fast and soft when it is moist and wet, but slower and harder when it gets cold and dry. Longer sustained periods of good growing season will create larger rings.

My artwork in the past has helped to situate myself within a place. I have used photography and the grounds on which to draw and paint images my Grandmother took when she first lived in Toronto, and then I extended this idea outward and explored the city in its present and its past. This helped me as I moved to Kingston, and Stockholm. I expected to recognize the city I returned to after five years but mountains rose and fell in that time.

In an effort to build a connection to my local area I began searching for photos only of St. Clair West and Bathurst. This was when I found the St. Clair West Oral History Project created by the Wychwood Barns Community Association in 2016. I used the St. Clair West Oral History Project and the Toronto Archives for starting points to find the archival photos within the work of the areas around St. Clair West as seeds for the photography project to learn not only about this new Toronto I now call home but also about how this city changes.

The premise of this work was to construct rings of documentary photos that would show areas changing over time. The resulting artworks are overlapping slices of old and new photography like the rings of a tree, positioned in the same location. Each layer was masked to match with a tree ring from cross sectional photographs of tree trunks starting from the inside and working outward to show the changes as time moves forward.

Photos Brought Back

Themes of heritage, the moment in time, and change over time are significant in my work. During my process, I questioned whether I wanted my final work to be a photograph or a painting. I explored the idea of painting a mural and hanging the painting of my grandmother’s photograph in front. While more painterly, it felt like something was missing when I went to these places without my paintings. Through the painting, I explore the past, then through photography, I fit it into the present. Without this, the significance of the piece falls apart. I considered photographing my paintings on easels, but instead chose to hold them myself. This illustrates me stuck in the present while my grandmother is trapped in the past.

Before, I was unsure whether personal imagery and heritage in my work would be interesting to a stranger. However, the personal footage in Suzy Lake’s Performing an Archive and how she travelled to places her ancestors lived interested me immensely. My original idea of painting archived photographs of Toronto changed after viewing Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 at the AGO. I concluded that in order to create successful artwork about Toronto, I needed to have a thorough understanding and appreciation of its history. This was not something that could be achieved by research alone; I had to have personal experiences of Toronto's past, something emotionally connecting myself, and others, to the art. By painting photographs my grandmother took from the 1940s and 50s, I can explore places rooted in my own history.