Greg Girard - Under Vancouver (signed)

Greg Girard
Under Vancouver 1972-1982 (signed)

Published by The Magenta Foundation, 2022
Size: 17.8 x 24.7 cm
184 pages
Language: English
Third edition
ISBN: 978-1-926856-10-0
Signed by the artist

Greg Girard's photographs of Vancouver taken in the 1970s and early 1980s show us the city's final days as a port city at the end of the railway line. Soon after Vancouver began to receive international attention (Expo 86 is generally considered the pivotal moment), the city began to transform into an urban resort on the edge of nature and to attract attention as a real estate investment destination. At this point, long before post-9/11 security concerns isolated the city's waterfront, many of Vancouver's downtown and east side streets ended at the waterfront, an area filled with commercial fishing wharves, freight terminals, bars, and cafes catering to seaside workers and sailors. The windows of downtown pawn shops displayed outboard motors, chainsaws, and fishing gear. Wandering these streets, living in cheap hotels, Girard photographed the working (and night-time) world of the city where he grew up.

The photographs in Under Vancouver 1972–1982 were taken before Girard began earning a living as a magazine photographer and then established a formal practice as an artist. They reveal an early interest in the hidden and overlooked, the use of color film at night, and extensive photographic research of a specific location, all of which became distinctive features of later books such as City of Darkness and City of Darkness Revisited (about the infamous Kowloon Walled City), Phantom Shanghai, and Hanoi Calling; David Campany interview with William Gibson.