The Long Wait is a photography-based exhibition by Concordia graduate student Michael Love. In an examination of Canada’s Cold War military past, the artist traveled to Germany to photograph the twelve Canadian NATO bases which operated from 1956 to 1994. In their present states of use and decay, from abandoned forts to refugee camps to explosive testing grounds, the historically-charged sites act as living documents of a conflicted past. Love records these transformed ruins as a means of experiencing first-hand the scale of Canada’s largest and longest peacetime operation—the frontlines in a battle of ideals and nuclear proliferation.
Biography
Michael Love was born in Chilliwack, British Columbia and is completing his MFA at Concordia University. He studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design and at the University of the Fraser Valley to complete his BFA in 2003. Love was the 2007 recipient of the Roloff Beny Fellowship, and his photographic work was recently featured in the British publication Next Level. His work has been exhibited nationally at the Presentation House Gallery, Gallery 44, and Access Artist-Run Centre, and internationally in France and England. Love is included in an upcoming exhibition at the LAB gallery in San Francisco in 2010. |
