Hanging in Havana

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Thursday morning was the day to hang the show. The Havana Art Gallery is part of a Theatre/Restaurant/Gallery concern on Commercial Drive in Vancouver. We needed to hang the show before the restaurant portion started cooking up the heuvos rancheros.

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Early mornings are not a problem. Early mornings are, in fact, the best time to measure - before the events of the day make everything fuzzy.

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This show went up a little faster than the Melriches show, in part because it was possible to use brackets to hang the pictures. These photographs are c-prints mounted on sheet aluminum. It was also a little quicker because the room was empty. At Melriches I was working around the customers - always a little worried that I'd injure a patron with the sharp aluminum edges. Oh dear.

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There is nothing quite like the feeling of putting the first image on an empty wall. It is immensely satisfying. After the first image, the portraits begin to interact with each other. They talk to each other. Sometimes they are happy to be where they are - sometimes they ask to be moved.

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This show is a joint show between myself and Sophena Kwon. Sophena is inspired by everything about the polaroid process - the immediacy, the objects, and the wonder of the developing image. For this show she has also come up with an ingenious way to recreate the images in a larger format.

There is an opening reception this Sunday. Official times 4-7pm. but likely it will go until about 9pm. Please drop by for a glass of wine.

Tim McLaughlin

Photographer and writer based in Vancouver, Canada