http://www.affta.ab.ca/Resources/Grant-Help-And-Resources/Individual/Art-Acquisition/Guidelines
The annual "Alberta Foundation For The Arts", art by acquisition deadline is April 1. A few years back I managed to get 1 print into the province of Alberta art collection but since then no luck. Here are this years submitted photographs along with my artist statement. For those Albertans interested in making a submission I also included a link.
The annual "Alberta Foundation For The Arts", art by acquisition deadline is April 1. A few years back I managed to get 1 print into the province of Alberta art collection but since then no luck. Here are this years submitted photographs along with my artist statement. For those Albertans interested in making a submission I also included a link.
Artist Statement
My photography deals with telling the stories of forgotten people. I work to give my subjects a voice that they would otherwise not have.
This submission is made up of 3 different photographic series I made in November of 2013, the work is ongoing. Please visit my website www.gerryyaum.blogspot.com for the back stories of these photographs (the blog covers 7 years). I wrote daily as I made the pictures and later on as I processed and printed the work in my traditional wet darkroom. There are hundreds of other scans of images from these series and others on the blog. All photographs were made on film using traditional methods.
“Families of the Dump” Series
The “Families of the Dump” series is something I have been working on for 2 years, it deals with refugee Burmese families who have come across the border from Burma into Thailand. In Thai they live and work at the Mae Sot Garbage dump where they can scavenge for recyclable goods. The families have built small wooden shack homes or sleep in the open under terrible conditions. The 2 works chosen from these series are a photograph of a young mother bathing her baby girl and a photograph of a young girl playing in the garbage next to her family’s home (they did not have a house only a small lean too type structure made of scavenged wood and cloth).
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| Mother bathing her baby girl, Mae Sot Thailand 2013 |
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| Young girl playing in garbage, Mae Sot Thailand, 2013 |
“Migrant Farmer” series
The “Migrant Famers” series was made in rural Nepal, the families who worked the land traveled from all over Nepal and lived in terrible conditions. The photograph chosen is of a tin tent type family home, the father was out working while the mother cooked for the family with her young daughter nearby.
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| Mother cooking for family, Nepal 2013 |
“Leprosy” Series
I photographed the” Leprosy” series in a colony of homes next to a hospital in the middle of Nepal. These patients were older non contagious survivors of the disease who had lost fingers, toes and had problems with their eyesight. The photograph chosen is of older leprosy victim with a damaged eye, as he sat on the concrete floor of his small room.
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| Man in leprosy colony, Nepal 2013 |
“Street Kids” Series
The “Street Kid” series was made on the streets of Kathmandu Nepal. The kids in the series slept on the street next to an open fire, and would beg each day from Western tourists to survive. The group was made up of about 15 young boys along with 2 girls, drug use was common amongst the members. The photograph chosen is of a group of young men as they slept on the ground under a filthy blanket, it was around 6am, the daily traffic of Kathmandu was starting to hum around them. |
| Young boys sleeping on street, Nepal 2013 |
