the great photographer vic

8/4/2019 The Great Photographer VIC

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THE GREAT PHOTOGRAPHER

Larry Towell

If there's one theme that connects all my work, Ithink it's that of land-lessness; how land makespeople into who they are and what happens tothem when they lose it and thus lose theiridentities.

LARRYTOWELL


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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, andoral historian.

He is one of the rare photojournalists who travels reluctantly andonly when the subject is very important to him.

While studying Visual Arts at York University, Toronto, he wasgiven 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. Hiswork focussed on the homeless, exile and peasant rebellion.Some of his projects included the Nicaraguan Contra war, therelatives of the disappeared in Guatemala, and AmericanVietnam War veterans, who had returned to Vietnam to rebuildthe country.


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Larry Towell captures the desperation of those living

behind Israels 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 AduDis in the suburbs of East Jerusalem.

A-Tur, Jerusalem, 2004


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MEXICO 1994, La Batea, Zacatecas

The Mennonite Community


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World Press Photo of the Year: 1993

Gaza City, Palestinian Territories


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I realized that Americans had neverbefore seen their own bodies torn toshreds, nor their buildings tumble to the

ground

USA, New York City, September 11th, 2001


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Beggarsgrave

Afghanistan 2008


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Larry Towell and novelist Ace Atkins set out tocover the wake of Hurricane Katrina. An intimateone week road trip through a strange landscape

became a tribute to human endurance.


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Katrina


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The World From My Front Porch

"When I was an adolescent, my father once scolded me forwanting 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 hatedtravel. The world was his front porch."


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The World from My Front Porch


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Intimacy, the antithesis of violence, is much harder to

document than war, because it is invisible."


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Dwellings isolates a selection ofphotographs Towell has made whileworking on a number of separate projectsthat are all investigations of land andbelonging. Believing that land makespeople who they are, and that the loss of

land is synonymous with a loss of identity,Towell has engaged with families living indire conditions in such places as Beirut,the Gaza Strip, South Africa andAfghanistan. This exhibition looks attraces of the human condition asevidenced by remnants of the inhabitants

existence.

the great photographer vic

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