Toronto Photographer Uses Photomontage to Reflect the History of a City
Photographer Harry Enchin’s mother grew up in the Junction neighbourhood of Toronto in the 1930s. During a drive with her in that area about a decade ago, Enchin was struck by how much the area had changed in the intervening decades. He hit on the idea of using photo collage as a way to link the old and the new, to bridge the decades, to evoke memory through art. Enchin went through tens of thousands of archival images of the city. Of those that struck a chord, Enchin would go to the location and take the same photograph, from the same location and angle as the original. Using only two photographs, the old and the new, Enchin created photo collages that interwove the old and the new and captured the spirit and history of both times. For example, one photo collage shows a modern woman surrounded by Toronto suffragettes. Another key factor is that the images are specifically 100 years apart. This work, called “Moments in Time” has been well received in Toronto and was shown during the 2014 Toronto Nuit blanche. The work has also been shown during Art Week in Miami and in New York City. He has done similar projects in Lower Manhattan and Boston. To see more of the work, visit his website, Toronto Moments in Time.
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Image:
Dundas and Ossington 1923/2011 from the “TorontoTIME” series
by Harry Enchin
25″x33″
digital c-print: acrylic face-mount on dibond
edition of 25
Courtesy of the artist