Former Gazette photographer gives his all for art fest

The name Ben Lemphers hasn’t been regularly seen on the pages of the St. Albert Gazette for several months now but the former staff photographer has still kept his camera busy.

For the first time he has a show at The Works Art and Design Festival that gets under way tomorrow.

Last Friday he, along with two other visual artists, opened an exhibit meant to explore the concept of progress as people, natural spaces and cities evolve through cycles of construction, destruction and reconstruction.

?rogress contains several photos from a series he put together a few years ago on urban sprawl. Taking a look at his work, it’s obvious he knows the subject might be sensitive. Regardless, he maintains a professional and dispassionate air about the scenes he snaps.

“I think that the pictures take an objective look at those spaces and how the land is being used,” he claimed. “I don’t say anything. I’m trying to let the photos speak for themselves.”

When he heard about the call for submissions, he felt this series would have a strong statement to make.

“I thought that was kind of an interesting take on progress, just looking at whether or not the kind of development that’s going on in suburban areas is a positive thing. Is that the kind of progress that we want to pursue?”

His images will push a lot of buttons as they depict scenes of neighbourhoods in new subdivisions where you might live and be surrounded by vacant muddy lots and construction debris. Taking a step back from these housing developments and you see these mansions have the same profile. It looks like row housing but the fact is cities generally grow and expand outward.

“I don’t really see a positive model for suburban growth going on.”

In his artist statement, he refers to the conundrum of progress.

“Consider what is being lost to make room for spacious lots, and witness the homogeneity of the planning — do we still want to be a part of this? In cities such as Edmonton and Calgary, lack of restrictions on low-density suburban development has left enormous ecological footprints many times larger than cities elsewhere with millions more inhabitants.”

?rogress runs in conjunction with The Works Art and Design Festival, as well as Bridgesongs, a music and arts event that features two nights of live music, an album release, two art galleries, spoken word and artist workshops. To learn more about Bridgesongs, visit www.iloveartists.ca.