Opening & Vernissage of Canada Canada: Photographs by Rip Hopkins

CANADA CANADA: Photographs by Rip Hopkins

This exhibition highlights the work of Rip Hopkins, an internationally renowned photographer who was born in Sheffield, UK, studied in Paris, France, and is currently living and working in Belgium. Over the course of a year, Hopkins made multiple visits to Canada, connecting with and photographing a variety of people, groups and activities in the Ottawa-Gatineau area.

This archive of work can be viewed as a photographic trajectory of Hopkins’ travels and the relationships he formed in an array of public sectors; from his participation in a yoga session on Parliament Hill, to restocking the shelves at a T & T Supermarket, and riding a horse with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Inspired by the documentary aesthetics of Walker Evans and Robert Frank, Hopkins has captured scenes of everyday life – while simultaneously inserting himself into each photograph and subverting the notion of objectivity. Sometimes easy to spot, while at other times a ‘Where’s Waldo’ challenge, his inclusion humorously reveals that each image has been staged. Often swapping clothing with or being redressed by his subjects, his photographic process is a way to navigate a new country, while the photographs produced are inherently reflexive and have more to say about the maker than the depicted subjects.

Rip Hopkins was born in Sheffield, UK and studied at the École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle in Paris. For almost ten years, he worked in collaboration with Doctors Without Borders to produce photo and documentary reports about endangered populations across the world, and his most recent project was Belgian Blue Blood (2016), a series of photographs relating to the Belgian aristocracy. He has exhibited at the Photographers’ Gallery (London), the Musée d’Orsay (Paris), the Maison européenne de la Photographie (Paris), and the Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain (Strasbourg). His work is included in the collections of the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation, LaSalle Bank, HSBC Foundation, and the Centre Pompidou. In Europe, he is represented by Galerie Le Réverbère and LT2.

Rebecca Basciano
Assistant Curator

Organized by Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) and the French Embassy, with the support of the British High Commission and Ottawa 2017.