Multiple Exposures (2011)

Multiple Exposures (2011) depicts the same location photographed over a 600-year period. Starting with a pre-colonial old growth forest, the eight images portray the fur trade (the near extinction of the beaver), an early sawmill (the clearing of forests), a19th century textile mill (the use of fossil fuels, in this case coal), a 1960′s chemical plant (modern industrial pollution), a closed plant in the 1980′s (the shift of industrial production from the minority to the majority world thus globalizing environmental impacts as well as the pollution resulting from increased transportation), a 21st century mall (consumer waste and the economy of debt) and finally an office tower (financialization and global warming).

The location is identified in each image by the presence of Mount Nemo (part of the Niagara escarpment) in the background. The foregrounds are constructed from various locations in Ontario. The actors represent a businessman: from a colonial merchant to a pitchman for credit cards, and finally, a stock-market read-out. There are two workers in each image, one representing the human costs (injury, illness, and unemployment), and the other representing forms of resistance. All the worker characters are gathered together in the final image.