Ministry of Jobs, Tourism: Suvreet Johal

Suvreet Johal: Karin Skarth, arts and outreach manager of the ICA, put out a call for people to be part of the Inside Community project, to tell the story of their community and to build capacity for visual storytelling within these communities. As part of the Embrace B.C. Arts Engagement project, funded by the multicultural unit of the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training, five people took their cameras on a journey to explore their Filipino, Japanese, Sikh and African communities in Victoria. , according to Times Colonist. I spoke with Suvreet Johal whose succinct and revealing images of Victorias Sikh community are some of the most telling images on display. Johal is a third-generation Victorian the Johal family has been here since 1904. This project gave her a reason to look more deeply into her communitys traditions and to discover how the Sikh religion informs its activities in the wider world. While her only previous training was a photo session in her high school art course, Johal was able, using her Canon T4i Rebel camera, to capture images of incredible resolution. In the past year she has made more than 2,000 photos for the project. Everyone is a photographer. Thats one of the joys of the digital age. But what will your subject be? The Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria encouraged five amateur photographers to look into their ethnicity. The results from this project are now on show at Dales Gallery 537 Fisgard St. . Working with the guidance of Quinton Gordon, facilitator and educator and principal of Luz Studios , each participant created hundreds sometimes thousands of photographs. A selection of six images from each photographer has been printed in a large format by Gordon. Another part of the show is a 15-minute multimedia slide show, with each artist contributing from 50 to 200 images, accompanied by a voiceover sound track featuring interviews with the subjects of the photos. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.