Exhibit captures the changing landscape of P.E.I. during the 1970s

A new photography exhibit at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery is giving Islanders a chance to take a look back at what life was like on P.E.I. during the 1970s.

The exhibit, A Documentary Impulse:1970s Photography of Prince Edward Island, aims to highlight the great changes the Island has gone through over the last several decades.

"You're capturing these things that you totally forgot, you see them so much and then you look at them again with the distance of 40 years and it's kind of powerful and it's really an incredible impression of the way things looked," said Pan Wendt, the curator of the exhibit at the gallery.

6 month project

The bulk of the exhibit features documentary images taken on film by Lawrence McLagan, Lionel Stevenson and Jake Werner during a six-month-project the photographers took on in 1977, said Wendt.

Some of the work selected for the exhibit will also feature other documentary photographers who were active on the Island during the 1970s such as, George Zimbel, Richard Furlong and Wayne Barrett.

Zimbel, in particular, was a prominent photographer from New York who was known for photographing Marilyn Monroe.

The photographs depict the cultural and social lives of people on the Island — at home and at work, he said.

"We are always looking at pictures of people now, with social media and selfies ... so the portrait has kind of become so ubiquitous we don't even notice it anymore," Wendt said. 

"So to look at these images of people that were selected from a roll of film, that one took time to process and there was a certain amount of care that went into that image."

6,000 photos

"Everyday we have someone recognizing someone they know," Wendt said.

As visitors have come to the gallery to view the exhibit, Wendt said, there have been many who have identified friends or loved ones — including staff who helped promote the exhibit, he said.  

In the original commission, the three photographers took about 6,000 pictures for the project. About 105 were selected to be featured in the exhibit, Wendt said.

"You see cultural change. There are some things that have changed and there are some things that are gone for good," he said.

The exhibit will be on display at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery until May 2019.

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