Sandra Semchuk Explained

Sandra Semchuck
Birth Date:1948
Birth Place:Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada
Field:Photographer
Training:Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, 1970Masters Degree in Photography, University of New Mexico, 1983
Awards:Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2018)
Spouse:James Nicholas (d. 2007)

Sandra Semchuk (born 1948) is a Canadian photographic artist.[1] In addition to exhibiting across Canada and internationally, Semchuk taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design from 1987 to 2018.[2]

In 1998, Presentation House, Vancouver, B.C. programmed "How Far Back is Home ..." a 25-year retrospective of Semchuk's career highlighting her relationship to identity, morality and land.[3]

Sandra was awarded a grant from 2008 to 2015 from the Canada First World War Internment Fund to complete her book on Ukrainians in Canada, The Stories Were Not Told: Stories and Photographs from Canada's First Internment Camps, 1914-1920.[4]

Career

Semchuk was raised in a close-knit Ukrainian-Canadian community, which greatly informed the theme of interconnected identity in her practice. Her work from the late 1970s involved dialogue and collaboration with her parents, partner, and young daughter. Semchuk's early photographic works have been said to belong to a “broad general category of documentary”.[5] Her photographic portrait works from this era, more specifically her 1982 series of eighty-seven photographs entitled Excerpts from a Diary, address themes of death and family [6] whilst presenting a narrative of “self-examination and transformation” through her use of self-portraits and images containing domestic and prairie backgrounds.[7]

Penny Cousineau-Levine, the author of Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination, writes of Excerpts from a Diary that the journey of Semchuk's protagonist “follows the structure of classic initiatory voyages of descent and return, death and rebirth, the prototype of which is the Greek legend … of Orpheus, who, grief-stricken at the death of his wife, descends to the underworld to convince the god Pluto to allow her to return to earth.” [8] Cousineau-Levine goes on to state that these photographic sequences “take the shape of heroic descent into darkness and peril, into an experience of death and nothingness followed by rebirth, a transformed relation to the self, and a renewed connection to life”, something that she claims offers “an understanding of death that is particularly relevant to Canadian photography.” [8]

Collaboration with James Nicholas

James Nicholas & Sandra Semchuk were married until James died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2007. James was a Cree artist from Nelson House, Manitoba. He suffered extensively in residential schools as a child.[9] Their collaborative work focused on the multiplicity of relationships to land, cultural geography, settler and indigenous relationships and memory.[10]

Collaboration with Skeena Reece

In 2013, Sandra Semchuk worked with performance artist Skeena Reece on a piece titled Touch Me for the exhibition Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools. During this performance, Reece and Semchuk struggle with themes of forgiveness and mother-daughter relationships as Reece bathes Semchuk.[11]

Education

Select solo exhibitions[13]

Awards

Collections

Publications

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Sandra Semchuk . . 2016-11-12 . 2016-11-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161112142221/https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=24295 . live .
  2. Book: Bassnett, Sarah; Parsons, Sarah . Photography in Canada, 1839–1989: An Illustrated History . Art Canada Institute . 2023 . 978-1-4871-0309-5 . Toronto . English.
  3. Web site: Sandra Semchuk: How far back is home… - Presentation House Gallery. 2016-11-12. 2016-10-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20161019062620/https://presentationhousegallery.org/exhibition/how-far-back-is-home-sandra-semchuk/. live.
  4. Web site: Grants | Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund | 202-952 Main Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R2W 3P4 | Phone: 204-589-4282 | Toll Free: 1-866-288-7931. www.internmentcanada.ca. 2021-09-25. 2021-03-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20210303210106/https://www.internmentcanada.ca/grant-funded.cfm. live.
  5. Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003.DèsLibris Canadian Electronic Library. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 June 2004. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. p. 65
  6. Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003.DèsLibris Canadian Electronic Library. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 June 2004. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. p.218
  7. Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003.DèsLibris Canadian Electronic Library. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 June 2004. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. p. 220
  8. Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003.DèsLibris Canadian Electronic Library. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 June 2004. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. p.223
  9. Web site: Residential school trauma and healing: the art of James Nicholas & Sandra Semchuk. missnesbitt. 22 December 2014. 12 November 2016. 19 October 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20161019101119/https://unsettling2014.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/969/. live.
  10. Kunard, Andrea, and Carol Payne. The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2011. Print.
  11. Dowell. Kristin. Spring 2017. "Residential Schools and "Reconciliation" in the Media Art of Skeena Reece and Lisa Jackson". Studies in American Indian Literatures. 29. 116–138. 10.5250/studamerindilite.29.1.0116. 164907414.
  12. Semchuk, Sandra. Coming to Death's Door: A Daughter/father Collaboration: October 19 to November 24, 1991, Presentation House Gallery. North Vancouver, BC: Gallery, 1992. Print.
  13. Web site: Sandra Semchuk. art-history.concordia.ca. 2016-11-12. 2008-03-29. https://web.archive.org/web/20080329221727/http://art-history.concordia.ca/eea/artists/semchuk.html. live.
  14. Web site: The Stories Were Not Told. 2021-09-25. 2021-01-18. https://web.archive.org/web/20210118164541/https://www.comoxvalleyartgallery.com/exhibitions/stories-not-told/. live.
  15. Web site: Sandra Semchuk: How Far Back Is Home…. 2011-01-19. The Polygon. en-US. 2020-03-03. 2020-03-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20200303222257/https://thepolygon.ca/exhibition/sandra-semchuk-how-far-back-is-home/. live.

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