Requiem for a Photobooth: Femke's new show at the JEM Gallery

The Skinny's photo editor, Femke van Delft - an amazingly hardworkin' and gifted photographer who has been documenting almost every punk and avant-garde show of note in Vancouver for the last while - has a new show at the JEM Gallery, 225 East Broadway; the opening will be on Thursday June 26th, from 7-11 pm, and is open to all who are interested (I guess this means Femke won't be coming to shoot the Reverend Horton Heat that night; ah, well!). The title for the project is Requiem for a Photobooth: 3 punk bands, 4 shots, 1 minute of silence; she's been working on it for awhile. I'm not entirely sure who will be in the shots displayed - I know that varied members of the Pointed Sticks, the Furies, the Dishrags, and various other local punk bands have participated in the project - but it sounds like her photobooth will be there. Here's Femke's blurb!

Years of ambivalence about working as a photographer led me to purchase a second hand photobooth, instantly dealing with a couple of issues. First, there is no photographer. Second, it returns the power [a self-portrait] and the property [no negative, but a paper positive photostrip] back to the subject, the only recipient of the only print. By removing myself from the process, I could explore the subversive role of this common photobooth experience to look at the ways that people mock their school pictures, their passport, their driver's license, security tags and mug shots. When the photobooth camera is pointed at us, we feel more comfortable, we laugh freely, but not with any other camera.

There is no other public place that allows this subversive kind of privacy. In a digital age focused on security and surveillance, this amazing mechanical booth is near extinction. So, who will go in, sit down, stick out their tongue and sing the requiem?

This will be your only opportunity for your own requiem shot in my photobooth!

Hope to see you there!