Online: November 10 to December 21, 2023

Photography in the Leonore Peyton Salon

Please note: the Leonore Peyton Salon is a multi-purpose space; therefore, viewing times are limited. Please call 604.664.1636 for viewing availability prior to your visit.

Now more than ever, the arts are being called upon to awaken, move and jolt us into a new way of seeing and being within our environment. We are being called upon to remember what has always been present in us but has laid dormant for so long: that we and the natural world are interconnected, creative beings, wishing to emerge and be witnessed.

My inner landscape was shaken during the experiences of 2020 when the world was thrown into chaos. Human loss, climate catastrophes and racial upheavals unfolded around us begging us to question all that we held to be true. I was grieving and needed a new story, one of beauty and empathy for all creation.

The landscape of the Katzie and Kwikwetlem First Nations has always held me when I most needed it, so I vowed to hold it too, to document it, to give life to it in ways only I knew how. I vowed to behold it, to look beyond the surface and witness the mystery. I have been asking myself these questions to inform my practice: What impact am I making by being here and what impact will I leave when I’m gone? How can my art be of service to the environmental movement?

Beholden is a collection of photographs created since September 2021 as a response to climate and personal grief and as an invitation to see art as a form of ecological protection.

Allison is a photographer and filmmaker. She studied filmmaking in London, England before moving to Egypt and becoming an entrepreneur. Since relocating to British Columbia, she has worked as a lifestyle photographer and raised three daughters. She currently works on visual branding with individuals and organizations that are part of the environmental and wellness movement. Her personal projects include documenting the unceded, sacred lands of the Kwikwetlem and Katzie First Nations upon which she resides. Her reverence for deep ecology, spirituality and community is the foundation upon which she guides all areas of her life and work. As part of Allison’s commitment to sustainability, all frames in this exhibition have been sourced sustainably, nothing new has been purchased.

www.soulography.ca

Instagram: @allisonyoussef

Opening Reception

November 17 • 7 pm to 9 pm • 1120 Brunette Avenue, Coquitlam

more info