Chester Fields 2022:
Look Again
Chester Fields is an initiative of The Polygon Gallery that encourages the development of visionary young photographers, giving them an opportunity to show their work on a professional platform. Teen artists from across the region are invited to submit original works of photographic art in response to a theme. All submittals are reviewed by a jury of artists and arts professionals, who select works to be shown in both virtual and onsite exhibitions.
Below showcases the submittals chosen by the jury. An in-person exhibition of the shortlisted artists will be shown at The Polygon Gallery August 10 to September 11, 2022.
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Our Spring exhibition at The Polygon Gallery was Cloud Album, which celebrated the contributions of photography to the development of modern meteorology. From the medium’s beginnings in the 1800s through to the mid- twentieth century, advancements in camera technology allowed researchers to document clouds more accurately, and to catalogue their forms, leading in turn to more accurate predictions of weather. These researchers depended on hundreds of photographers – many of whom were hobbyists or amateurs – to continually point their cameras skyward, capturing thousands of images that tracked subtle changes in atmospheric activity.
This commitment to returning to a subject repeatedly inspired the 2022 Chester Fields theme, Look Again. Photography is so often an instantaneous process; what new possibilities can be discovered when we draw that process out? Rather than capturing an image instantly, photographers were challenged to choose a subject that they would revisit, again and again, over a period of time. Artists interpreted this theme, and took up this challenge, with incredible ingenuity. At a time when our attention is often scattered and diverted, themes of slowing down, looking closely, and contemplating carefully continued to arise among the rich variety of images submitted.
A heartfelt congratulations to all our 2022 Chester Fields finalists.
Header image credit: Anova Hou
Chester Fields 2022 Shortlist
Max Archibald
Untitled 3D Scans
I used the Lidar sensor on my phone, which emits pulsed light waves from a laser into the environment and allows me to create 3D scans. I used this feature to create 3D interactive photos, where the audience can interact with my piece and view my images from many different perspectives. Still photography allows you to see the perspective of the artist but in my project, I want you to collaborate and become an artist as well, looking at my images from your perspectives. I want you to look at all the minute details and notice the scuffs, wear, rust, and all the imperfections. I chose to make three scans of objects I found around my neighbourhood: things we know exist but do not give much attention to. I am excited for you to collaborate with me and see what you can find!
Viola Castellani
Ephemerality
In the first shot, between the living white flowers, a single bright orange flower can be hardly seen, inviting the audience to look closer and examine the composition.
The second shot shows that the white flowers have withered, revealing to the observer that the single orange flower was fake.
This second shot makes the observer look again at the first shot, maybe to find a little detail that they missed, which would hint that the orange flower is fake. I as the photographer had to revisit this composition over and over again as I waited for the flowers to wither between taking each shot.
Ally Chi
Untitled
A triptych of my grandmother’s apartment, the day before a scheduled cleaning service. My grandmother’s secret hobby of dumpster diving has been rewarding. Found items are seen all over her balcony; the red lotus lamp, the plastic flowers, etc. She inspects each room, hiding the items that could be considered as trash by the cleaners.
Gillian Forde
Road Repair
In Road Repair, my photographs highlight the beauty that can be found in imperfections by capturing close-up photographs of tar lines in the road. Tar lines are often seen as nothing more than bandages attempting to repair broken roads. However, they can also be works of art when seen through a different lens, as demonstrated in my work.
Hannah Gharagozloo
Unmasked
For my piece entitled Unmasked, I am challenging people to take the time to look again at the people you talk to everyday and don’t take the time to check up on. We are all surrounded by many people in our lives, be it our family and close friends or even strangers. They often carry smiles on their faces, but are they truly doing alright? In this piece, I am using this smiling mask to cover my subject’s face. The mask is a metaphor for what they are internally going through that they do not share with the world and instead choose to cover up, hence why the face of the subject is shaded. I wanted to bring awareness to the idea of taking time to look again at the people in your life, and seeing past the smiles they wear every day.
Lake Harris
Ixoreus Naevius
Illegibility is a form of resistance. Look Again is an opportunity to re-examine the intimate routines that define trans adolescence. Featuring a varied thrush that I preserved in my freezer, this work gives the viewer a window into the most confidential part of my morning. Queering my photography required an abstraction of the binary, an ambiguous balance between tearing off and putting on. Whether or not binding my chest prevents me from participating in sport and play, it has been an integral part of my daily pattern for years. The potential to explore queer experiences within everyday life is incredibly vast, but with my work I intend to illustrate the quiet reality that trans youth live with every day.
Jonathan Hays
What you want
When I heard the theme of Look Again, I thought not of looking at something else differently, but of looking at oneself differently. My photo came from the idea of how Asian-Canadians can feel pres- sure from relatives to spend long, hard nights studying with no sleep to become a doctor or a lawyer. I built upon the idea that kids have to take a step back from the predetermined path and decide if what their parents want is the same as what they want. My parents are really supportive, but I some-times feel like I’m not living up to their expectations, and letting them down. Sometimes expectations can really make us crack under pressure and break us, but we have to look again at ourselves and ask if this is what we really want.
Harrison Jung
rooftop
I walk past this building every day as I walk to school. I never looked back at it or thought much of it until one morning I was thinking about this project and realised the interesting possibilities for a photograph of this building. I continued through the day and the next day I brought my camera and took the photo of this building.
Laura Li
On the Rise
This photo was taken during a global climate strike on September 24th, 2021 in Vancouver, BC. It is a reminder for people to look again, at the image itself, their inner self, as well as the grim reality of the current climate crisis. The alterations of colours, particularly the sky, depict the potentially imminent future our planet holds if no drastic actions are taken. The shadows on the ground symbolise the climate clock: the time we have left to limit global warming to 1.5 °C before climate change becomes irreversible (around 7 years and 54 days left at the time of submission).
Gemma Linton
Glass Half Empty Glass Half Full
My work is inspired by the saying: “Is the glass half full or half empty?” Through a simplistic approach, I aimed to use light, shadow, and reflection to demonstrate how different perspectives can completely change the way in which the same subject is viewed. At first glance, the two photos may appear identical, but this encourages you to look again and notice how an alternate point of view creates an opposite reflection.
Jessica Lin
Inevitable Sensation
There is fascination and exploration in discovering the underbelly of mundane places, and the unexpected roles they play in my life. The restroom often acts as a panic room for me, somewhere I reside when anxiety overtakes my other emotions. The sink is the point of convergence. I have seen the same sink in a million different mental states. The sink stabilises me as a tangible object I can grasp in my states of confusion and chaos. The persistent flowing of emotions inevitably drains as the stopper becomes overwhelmed.
Ernest On
A Happy Mask’s Life
The used mask in the photo was found in my house when I was cleaning. When I saw the mask, it was scrunched up. When I looked more closely, the mask looked like an actual human face. I created this image by first testing different angles to make the face appear. Next, I considered lighting; I wanted a chill mood and an expressive tone. The message behind the image is that “even though Covid-19 has impacted us, we should still live a happy life”, because there are still amazing things that we can do.
Jonathan Sterling
Letting go
This piece is something very personal to me because being a dark-skinned individual is something that I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. There were times when I thought I was comfortable in my skin, which is why I look so confident in the youngest picture. As time progressed, I realised that I was struggling; in the picture on the left, I had started learning to be comfortable. The picture in the background is me currently, acknowledging my flaws and knowing that growth never stops. I’m looking away and smiling because the picture behind represents my past, and the promise to forgive myself for not loving me. The fading black-and-white gives a fleeting feeling, with me hanging in the balance but also taking charge of the person I want to become.
Jeffer Ward
The Value
For Look Again, I chose the dinner table as my topic. A dinner table can provide many opportunities to connect and make memories with those you value. Whether it be sharing a homemade meal or playing cards, it provides meaningful times with loved ones. There’s more to a dinner table than just sitting at a table. Companionship and food are necessities, and a dinner table provides both. The value of gathering around one area can be overlooked and missed. So next time you’re at a table, look again and realise the memories and connections you are making.
Emma Ni
Cuddle in the Dark
My photograph shows a reflection of light on the concrete wall. The image might not catch one’s attention at first glance. At a second glance, however, it might create the impression of two people cuddling tightly in an abstract manner. An abstract photograph requires you
to be aware of your surroundings and connect with them through
your imagination. If you look again, you will notice that it is not just a reflection of light, but an art form that can lead you to deeper thoughts.
Brooke Perry
Funny Tricks of Time
The Look Again topic represents to me looking again at someone’s past, which is what my work represents. I went to all five of my old houses and took photos of them to form another house, taking all my past memories and assembling them into one image that resonates with who I am today. I was also inspired by David Hockney’s collage photography. I made Funny Tricks of Time because people always focusing on the future but rarely look back at the past; this is to remind people of who they once were.
Sabrina Wu
Human Nature
This piece visualises the horrors of animal exploitation – a chaos disguised as the normalised order of humanity. Inspired by my childhood experiences of seeing farm animals being abused, I revisited this dilemma, in the hope of emphasising humanity’s cowardly relationship with animals. By merging a human’s eye within a goat’s eye, I contrast the horizontal pupil with the familiar circular pupils, creating a sinister and alienating effect. Through investigating the uncanny valley, I hope to express humanity’s foreign relationship to farm animals (contrary to household pets): where we have distanced ourselves to them, growing an egocentric desire to use them solely for short-term gratification, as suggested by the overlaid picture of an animal produce market. I hope to highlight this horrendous environment within the animal industry, a predicament masked by our self-proclaimed moral superiority.
Nazgol Zakerameli Renani
passport
I chose to “look again” into the past: specifically, my mother’s journey to Canada. It is always easy to judge a person through your first, second, or even third impression of them; but to truly connect with an individual we must “look back” and understand their past first. Through accumulation of different experiences, memories, and conversations, everybody has been moulded differently. Through this image, I wanted to convey the message that everybody’s story is a different one, and only through truly under-standing their story can you truly understand a person.
Wen Zeng
Slowdown & Revisit
The original idea of this set of photos was to use high shutter speed to shoot continuous motion without any motion blur because I was inspired by old film roll, and I wanted to apply the same concept to my work. After multiple attempts I decided to shoot with slow shutter speed instead because the blurred motion would create a contrast between running and sitting and it would make the clear image in the middle stand out. The idea I was trying to communicate was to slow down and revisit things that inspire passion: in this case, the book. The girl was running with a book in her hand and never had the time to open it and read, but then she finally got time to sit down and revisit her favorite book.
Isabella Zhou
Disorientation
Look Again relates to constant changing of environments, responsibilities, circumstances, and identity during the transition of youthhood to adulthood. It seems like your environment, and yourself in it, is different every time you look. The subject is photographed in a state of disorientation, confusion, and chaos. She appears ethereal, illustrating how passing time and rapidly changing identities can make an adolescent feel almost surreal. I tried to give shape to the feelings of disorientation by creat-ing a blurred, dream-like image. Utilising slow shutter speed, low ISO, and a free-moving camera, I also tried to encourage the viewer to physically “look again” at the shifting piece.
Chester Fields 2022 Longlist
Daniella Baillie
I see you
What do you see when you look in the mirror? What do you recognise first? Do you see your mind, your body, or your soul? Sometimes you can’t even manage to look at yourself in the mirror. A mirror is the closest thing we have to seeing ourselves. It offers a space for reflection and reality, which would otherwise not be available through a phone screen or even a picture. A mirror is one of the only places where what you see is what you get. So, what if you look at yourself and realise that you aren’t yourself? It hurts to look, to see what you’ve become, and what you’re doing. You visibly see yourself but don’t recognise what’s inside, and how that is what really matters.
Jasmine de Boda
passing time
I got my inspiration while I was doing my macro photography project. I think the ant with the red object was really interesting and wanted to capture that. I wanted to show the beauty in some things that people normally look once at, hence the name look again.
Coshiela Bote
Reconnecting with Self
This is a self-portrait of myself, using a slow shutter to create a motion blur effect to express the worst feeling of them all: overthinking. When I first heard of the theme “Look Again”, it reminded me of how people overanalyze past events. Overthinking is a perfectly human thing to do. Our brains just can’t help but go chaotic if we did something wrong, caused someone harm, or embarrassed ourselves. Your mind turns into this mental chaos, like a hamster wheel. I’m proud of how this piece turned out, as it perfectly resembles myself tossing and turning in bed unable to think, due to replaying past events in my head. For my over analyzers out there, I just wanted to let you know you aren't the only one. You got to start living in the present though, as we must accept what is done is done.
Kamran Chahal
Long Long Ago
Long Long Ago is a photograph I pulled from my old family album and edited to look like a dated photograph from many years ago. It shows me as an infant holding my favourite toy – Elmo. I edited this photograph to look heavily damaged and ruined as if it had been made and lost in the early 1900s, then recovered in the present day. When thinking about the exhibition’s theme, I knew that I wanted to find a photograph of my past self. I wanted to look back at my life before high school, to realise how innocent and happy I was as a child. I always had a smile on my face, and things were much simpler then, as opposed to my current adolescence. As a child, I always told my mom that I couldn’t wait to grow up. Now, I’m always telling people I wish I could stay young forever.
Marcus Chow
Rain is a Good Thing
My piece, Rain is a Good Thing, depicts the ever-changing environment due to precipitation. To create this photograph, I revisited the same location throughout the day while the weather changed, thus capturing the alterations we experience every day. The photo closely correlates to my surroundings and displays this unstable and seemingly random climate. As someone based in Vancouver, weather is important to me. My mood depends on the weather; a sunny day represents joy and excitement, whereas a rainy day makes me feel calm and collected.
Megan Humphrey
Watermelon
For my picture, I decided to use watermelon as my subject. I created a wallpaper effect behind the melon by exploring different creative and experimental processes while making photographs and using Photoshop. This practice also led me to accomplish my ultimate goal of looking again.
Hubert Leong
Controls
We often take for granted that we can get onboard transit and arrive where we need to be. We often overlook the human element behind it. This photograph shows the hard work and dedication of the people behind the scenes, who keep the system running smoothly every day.
Jazmine Lew
untitled
While making my photograph, I hoped there would be a dreamlike quality surrounding it. The deeper purpose for this is that I wanted to evoke certain fairytales. My piece conveys an entire narrative of Grimm stories, combined into a single image.
Kathy Li
untitled
I interpreted this year’s theme as something I might take for granted, something others do not have access to. That “something” being, despite my poor eyesight, the ability to see clearly all of the beautiful colours that fill our lives. I hope to successfully convey these thoughts and abilities through my photograph.
Stella Markovska
Oceans of Time
This photograph was made with my childhood friend, with whom I returned to a beach we used to visit when we were little. We reminisced about how so much has changed, yet nothing has changed at all. The image invites the viewer to “look again”; as the sky has turned into the ocean, and the world has flipped upside down. Along with the people pointing to the boat, emerging from the ocean… Where are they coming from? Where are they going?
Alexa Moll
Look At Us
In my work, Look At Us, I captured how time can change and evolve a relationship between two people. Every day we witness relationships, whether in public, at school, or even at home. We barely notice that through time these relationships can change, as well as the people themselves. I created this photographic work to show the confusion but also the variability of emotional states, which often comes with time in a relationship.
Stephanie Nitcha
untitled
To me, the theme Look Again means being able to look at yourself in a way that no one else can.
Talia Ott
Past and Present
It is not often that we think twice about the things that surround us; the common familiarity. We never seem to look back at the moments before us and understand how truly similar they are to today. The piece I created focuses on the passage of time, nostalgia and memory, demonstrating the universality of experience and the connections we of-ten fail to acknowledge. I worked with the front cover of a 1973 Sports Illustrated magazine overlaid with sports photography taken at a local basketball game. By compris-ing several moments of basketball – not just now but decades ago – it helped illustrate the small yet often nostalgic connections between the past and present.
Mia Quesne
Turquoise
Look at this object. What could it be, or what would you like it to be? Close-up photographs are not easy to decipher, leaving your brain at liberty to explore, dig deeper, and allow your imagination to take part. Don’t try to find the correct answer – there is none. Just “look again”
Jaddi Sze
Father’s Day
On Father’s Day, I re-observe the details of my father’s face and realise that time goes too fast. He doesn’t look the same as he used to, so I decided to capture this.
Nolan Tenniscoe
untitled
Friends come and go. I ran with this idea to create my image. The subject in the photograph is walking with a small group while looking into the camera. The experience of losing friends through different paths after graduating is something that I and nearly everyone can understand. I used black and white shades to set a more serious tone and dressed the other two people in dark colours to highlight the subject in the image.
Maija Westra
presence
To compose this image, I decided to use a black-and-white film camera because I like the element of surprise when developing film and the raw quality of the finished photograph. This camera allowed me to create a square composition and use a double exposure technique. The camera also enticed me into creating an image related to this year’s theme Look Again. The concept behind this piece addresses a woman who is completely out of touch with the world. It feels like there is another version of her controlling her life and choices. These versions, however, still manage to intermingle with each other. I want people to look at my work and consider another version of them-selves, who sometimes makes choices for them, regardless of whether they are good or bad.
Hanson Ye
LoOK AGAin
Have you ever accidentally clicked on the shutter button, only to realise that you have caught someone at their ugliest or funniest moment? 1/100 of a second is already on the slower side of the shutter speed scale, yet it is still way too fast for humans to comprehend. The way our eyes perceive information is so different from a camera that our eyes will never see exactly what the camera lens captures. Therefore, when the camera accidentally catches one of these moments rarely seen with our eyes, we find it awkward, funny, or even disturbing. So, to explore this sort of awkwardness, I captured my friend’s facial expressions and gestures as we talked for an hour, after which, I sorted through the photographs and recomposed them into an abstract composite. I want to extract a single form for the human eye, to emphasise the uncanny nature of photography. I aim to evoke the feeling people experience when looking at something so familiar yet so strange at the same time. Thus, please look at it again, and may I dare ask, how do you feel about it?
Rachel Yuan
Self Reflection
A reflection reveals insecurities, imperfections, beauty, and ugliness. What is our true self?
Angela Yue
Reflect
Reflect asks the audience to look at the flowers and facial expression in the mirror. Why is she happy to receive driedout flowers? Why did she receive them in the first place? We must appreciate what we are given. Sometimes, others judge what we have and speak out against it, but it may also be what draws you in. We should allow for more emotional input and appreciate the complexity of why people feel the way they feel.