Sandra Semchuk (born 1948) is a Canadian photographic artist. In addition to exhibiting across Canada and internationally, Semchuk taught at
Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Emily Carr University of Art + Design (abbreviated as ECU) is a public art university located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The university's campus is located within the Great Northern Way Campus in Strathcona. The university is a co-e ...
from 1987 to 2018.
In 1998,
Presentation House,
Vancouver, B.C. programmed "How Far Back is Home ..." a 25-year retrospective of Semchuk's career highlighting her relationship to identity, morality and land.
Sandra was awarded a grant from 2008 to 2015 from the Canada First World War Internment Fund to complete her book on
Ukrainians
Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian. The majority ...
in Canada, ''The Stories Were Not Told: Stories and Photographs from Canada's First Internment Camps, 1914-1920''.
Career
Semchuk was raised in a close-knit Ukrainian-Canadian community, which greatly informed the theme of interconnected identity in her practice.
Her work from the late 1970s involved dialogue and collaboration with her parents, partner, and young daughter.
Semchuk's early photographic works have been said to belong to a “broad general category of documentary”. Her photographic portrait works from this era, more specifically her 1982 series of eighty-seven photographs entitled ''Excerpts from a Diary,'' address themes of death and family whilst presenting a narrative of “self-examination and transformation” through her use of self-portraits and images containing domestic and prairie backgrounds.
Penny Cousineau-Levine, the author of ''Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination'', writes of ''Excerpts from a Diary'' that the journey of Semchuk's protagonist “follows the structure of classic initiatory voyages of descent and return, death and rebirth, the prototype of which is the Greek legend … of Orpheus, who, grief-stricken at the death of his wife, descends to the underworld to convince the god Pluto to allow her to return to earth.”
[Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003.DèsLibris Canadian Electronic Library. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 June 2004. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. p.223] Cousineau-Levine goes on to state that these photographic sequences “take the shape of heroic descent into darkness and peril, into an experience of death and nothingness followed by rebirth, a transformed relation to the self, and a renewed connection to life”, something that she claims offers “an understanding of death that is particularly relevant to
Canadian photography.”
Collaboration with James Nicholas
James Nicholas & Sandra Semchuk were married until James died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2007. James was a
Cree
The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...
artist from
Nelson House, Manitoba Nelson House ( cr, ᓂᓯᒐᐚᔭᓯᕽ, nisicawâyasihk) is a designated place in northern Manitoba, Canada adjacent to the Nelson House 170 Indian Reserve, which is part of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation. It is located approximately northwest o ...
. He suffered extensively in residential schools as a child. Their collaborative work focused on the multiplicity of relationships to land, cultural geography, settler and indigenous relationships and memory.
Collaboration with Skeena Reece
In 2013, Sandra Semchuk worked with performance artist
Skeena Reece
Skeena Reece (born 1974) is a Canadian First Nations artist whose multi-disciplinary practice includes such genres as performance art, "sacred clowning," songwriting, and video art. Reece is of Cree, Tsimshian, Gitksan, and Métis descent.
Back ...
on a piece titled ''Touch Me'' for the exhibition ''Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools.'' During this performance, Reece and Semchuk struggle with themes of forgiveness and mother-daughter relationships as Reece bathes Semchuk.
Education
* 1983 Master's degree in Photography,
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...
[Semchuk, Sandra. Coming to Death's Door: A Daughter/father Collaboration: October 19 to November 24, 1991, Presentation House Gallery. North Vancouver, BC: Gallery, 1992. Print.]
* 1970 Bachelor of Fine Arts,
University of Saskatchewan
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
, Saskatchewan
* 1970 Professional "A" Teachers Certificate,
Province of Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
Select solo exhibitions
* 2016 The Stories Were Not Told, Comox Valley Art Gallery, Courtenay, BC
* 1998 How Far Back is Home . . . ., Presentation House, Vancouver, B.C.
* 1991 Coming to Death's Door, a daughter/ father collaboration, Presentation House, Vancouver, B.C.
* 1991 Moving Parallel: Reconstructed Performances from Daily Life, Photographers Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Prince George Art Gallery, Prince George, British Columbia; University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Waterloo, Ontario; Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario; Art, Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario; McKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan; Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary, Alberta; Floating Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Gallery 44, Toronto, Ontario
* 1990 Paralleling the Bird, Forest City Gallery, London, Ontario;
Contemporary Art Gallery
A contemporary art gallery is normally a commercial art gallery operated by an art dealer which specializes in displaying for sale contemporary art, usually new works of art by living artists. This approach has been called the "Castelli Method" ...
, Vancouver, British Columbia
* 1986 Ritual, the Photographic Sequence, Forest City Gallery, London, Ontario
* 1986 The Coburg Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
* 1982 Excerpts from a Diary,
Mendel Art Gallery
The Mendel Art Gallery was a major creative cultural centre in City Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Operating from 1964 to 2015, it housed a permanent collection of more than 7,500 works of art. The gallery was managed by the city-owned Saskatoon G ...
, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
* 1979 The
Photographers Gallery, London, England
* 1975 The Photographers Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
* 1973 The Photographers Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Awards
*
Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts
The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually with the prize amount is $25,000
Created in 2000 by then Governor General Adrie ...
(2018)
Collections
* Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver
*Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa
*
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...
, Regina
*
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography
The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP) (french: Le Musée canadien de la photographie contemporaine (MCPC)) was a gallery of Canadian contemporary art and documentary photography. Founded in 1985 and affiliated to the National Galle ...
, Ottawa
*
Dunlop Art Gallery
The Regina Public Library is the citywide public library system of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Services
*Information and reference services
*Access to full text databases
*Community information
*Internet access
*Reader's advisory services
...
, Regina
*
Edmonton Art Gallery
The Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) is an art museum in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The museum occupies a building at Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton. The museum building was originally designed by Donald G. Bittorf, and B. James Wensley, alth ...
, Edmonton
*
McKenzie Art Gallery, Edmonton
* Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon
* Mount St. Vincent University of Art Gallery, Halifax
*
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York
* Photographers Gallery, Saskatoon
*
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...
, San Francisco
* University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Publications
*Bassnett, Sarah; Parsons, Sarah. "Sandra Semchuk" in
Photography in Canada, 1839–1989: An Illustrated History'' Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2023.
ISBN
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition and ...
978-1-4871-0309-5.
*Semchuk, Sandra. 2018. "The Stories Were Not Told: Canada's First World War Internment Camps." The University of Alberta Press. Print.
*Semchuk, Sandra, and Laurel Tien. "Telling Story! Voice in Photography: An Online Visual Art Critical Studies Program Evaluation." International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 5.3 (2004): n. pag.ProQuest Education Journals
roQuest Web. 17 Sept. 2016.
*Semchuk, Sandra. Toward Real Change: My Photographic Work Done in Saskatchewan from 1972 to 1982 and in New Mexico from 1982 to 1983. Diss. U of New Mexico, 1983. Albuquerque, New Mexico: U of New Mexico, 1983. Simon Fraser University Library Catalogue. Web. 17 Sept. 2016.
*Semchuk, Sandra. 1991. Coming to Death's Door: A Daughter/Father Collaboration. North Vancouver: Presentation House Gallery, 1992. Print.
*Semchuk, Sandra. 1989. Moving Parallel: Reconstructed Performances from Daily Life. Toronto: Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, 1989. Print.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Semchuk, Sandra
1948 births
Artists from Saskatchewan
Canadian photographers
Living people
People from Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan
Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners