Loft’s work honoured in new exhibit

Martin Akwiranoron Loft did a lot of walking over the pandemic, especially in Montreal, taking photos along the way each time. It brought him back to his 20s, when much of his work consisted of street photography. He began sharing black-and-white portraits of the people he’d encounter on Instagram, creating a page that’s since led to him being featured in an active exhibit at the McCord Stewart Museum.

A series of nine of his photographs are showcased in its latest exhibit, Pounding the Pavement, which saw its opening night on Wednesday. Loft is one of 30 street photographers honoured in the exposition, which is open to the public as of this Friday.

The photographs he chose for the exhibit were all taken at Orange Shirt Day events in Montreal from 2021 onward using Fujifilm X series digital cameras.

“I’ve documented that one ever since they started it,” he told The Eastern Door during the exhibit’s opening night. “It’s an aesthetic inside of a documentary production of art.”

That 2021 rally is one he said he’ll never forget. It was an emotional one, happening soon after the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation made it known ground-penetrating radar had detected the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. In one image, an elder can be seen crying, holding a sign reading “Assumez votre genocide” (Take responsibility for your genocide).

“It could have just been photojournalism, like a dispassionate journalist goes in without any skin in the game, without any connection to it,” he said, but that’s not how he approached it. “I was both in the rally and photographing the rally.”

The annual rally is one he said deeply resonates with him.

“My dad was a residential school survivor, and then I went to the day schools,” Loft said. “I would say that as long as I can walk the distance, I’m probably going to stick to documenting this over the long haul.”

Loft is also featured in a 24-minute film presented as part of the exhibit, where he got the chance to share his process with director Vincent Lafrance.

“I was there at the shoot when we filmed him taking photos,” said Zoë Tousignant, the curator of the exhibit, who first stumbled upon Loft’s work on Instagram. “It was very interesting, because he’s different, in that he interacts with people that he photographs. There’s no surreptitious aspect to it. He talks to them, he explains what he’s doing. He’s very honest, and I really like that.”

The exhibit showcases over 400 photographs, with many of them taken in the 1970s and 1990s. Some are as old as the 1860s, however. 

“This exposition reveals a plurality of lives in constant change,” said Anne Eschapasse, McCord’s president, while speaking to the crowd gathered for the opening. “It allows us to experience a visual history of Montreal that recounts the 1,001 ways in which Montrealers have appropriated the street: as a place for conversation, a place for asserting their identity, a space for celebration, a playground.”

Prints from well-known Montreal photographers like Brian Merrett, Serge Clément, and Gilbert Duclos are featured within the exhibit, which also includes works from lesser-known ones, like Edith H. Mather, Alan B. Stone and John Taylor. Many of the photographs came from the McCord’s own private collection, but many were also pulled from the Quebec Gay Archives, Quebec’s national archive and library (the BANQ), in addition to archives belonging to Concordia University’s library. 

The exhibit will run at the museum until October 26. 

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