Preview
A CELEBRATION OF WESTERN CANADIAN HERITAGE – THE PRAIRIE GRAIN ELEVATOR
Tom Hamp
Runs until January 7
Auburn Saloon
A drinking establishment located in downtown Calgary probably isn’t the first place you’d think of when you want to connect with the history of rural Western Canada. But the Auburn Saloon, at the base of the Calgary Tower, is where photographer Tom Hamp has chosen to display a collection of 20 large photographs comprised mainly of grain elevators that once dotted almost every part of the Prairies.
The Calgary-based petroleum engineer and self-taught photographer started taking photographs of grain elevators and other abandoned buildings about 10 years ago. Beginning with a 35-mm camera and now using a large format model to more adequately capture the sweep and majesty of the landscape, Hamp has documented places and a way of life that are literally disappearing from the map.
"They represent the reserve and quiet determination of the Prairie people," says Hamp of the elevators. "They’re an austere symbol."
Hamp’s own family has direct connections to the Prairies, with a great-grandfather who was a homesteader in Radisson, Saskatchewan.
"The grain elevator there was torn down before I could photograph it in large format," says Hamp.
His photographs, such as Receding Storm, taken in 1994, tell a simple and sad story. The grain elevators that line the railway track of Delia (located north of Drumheller) appear to be a child’s playset in relation to the massive, brooding storm clouds hanging overhead, pregnant with rain. This photograph – printed on Arches watercolour paper to give a tactile appearance and framed in wood salvaged from the kinds of buildings Hamp photographs – evokes the romance of place, but also serves as a documentary record of a town that today has only one grain elevator remaining.
Another photograph featuring a grain elevator in Queenstown, Alberta is a reminder that the history of the Prairies is fleeting and may be kept alive only through the efforts of those such as Hamp and other visual artists and historians who record a landscape that is constantly losing the sentinels which once stood as symbols of prosperity and growth.
"Queenstown has lost all of its elevators," says the photographer.
Today, in addition to being an accomplished photographer, Hamp could be considered a historian for searching out these often-forgotten places and recording them on film before all remnants of their existence are gone forever.
"It seems that our Western Canadian history is a fragile one, in that most of it is bound up in our elders' minds, and not so much in large edifices and institutions," says Hamp.
And perhaps that is why displaying these prints in a venue located at the foot of a concrete tower that is often considered the architectural symbol of modern Calgary reinforces, with stinging poignancy, the loss of our collective history. Hamp is reaching back to a simpler time in photographing grain elevators, but, more than just documenting these structures, he is also honouring a vanishing way of life.
As it did in its previous location, the Auburn Saloon plans to continue to feature the works of local artists in its new space. Following the Hamp show will be an exhibition of paintings by Elliott Mealia. |
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