Chronicles of Space and Time • by Mary O’Connor 1

Hamilton Arts & Letters   Cees and Annerie van Gemerden have lived in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada since 1984, and have been photographing the city since 1982. Their work has consisted primarily of different series of images, often accompanied by texts, documenting aspects of the city, whether the street life of James St. North in the 1980s, artists’ lives in the 90s coping with neoliberal government policies, or, notably, ecological issues throughout their career, including the reclamation of Hamilton Harbour waterfront and the movement to stop the Red Hill Expressway. The images are accessible and recognizable as everyday moments; indeed, they reveal an everyday that we might not have noticed or valued. In collecting these moments spatially in the image and narratively in time through the sequence of images, the van Gemerdens have chronicled our life in the city and given value to the joys, struggles and otherwise unremarked everyday moments of its downtown core.  [  >>>>>  FORWARD ]   [Distillate © HA&L + Mary O’Connor {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]