The video above consists of some photographs (made into GIF’s) and some video footage I had forgotten about, captured during UNSOUND Toronto at the Hearn. The portraits/cinema graphs were originally shot for Vice Thump.
When I was in high school and just getting into photography, one of the subjects that interested me both as a consumer of photographs and a creator was the then-subculture of urban exploration or urbex for short.
Urbex involved photographing abandoned or off-limits buildings while adhering strictly to the "take only pictures, leave only footprints" rule. Back then many abandoned buildings simply had no security like they certainly do now and if you stayed true to that rule —and made sure to never let a door close behind you— it felt totally fine.
In high school, I followed countless photobloggers who were urban explorers and documented everything from large abandoned factories in Detroit to the old sewer systems beneath Montreal. Around that time I was able photograph some local sites like the abandoned Don Valley Brickworks (before the revitalization by Evergreen), the abandoned Whitby Psych (since demolished), and the former Camp 30 Prisoner of War Camp in Bowmanville to name a few (potentially future newsletter topics?).
Of course the mecca of urban exploration sites here in Toronto was the legendary Hearn Generating Station. So big you can fit the Statue of Liberty inside either upright or sideways, or large enough to house 12 Parthenons.
Now years later as a professional photographer I’ve had the chance to revisit a number of these previous urbex locations, witnessing them being brought back to life.
First time at the Hearn during the media preview
From a high school student watching others, we fast forward 10 years into 2016, having the opportunity to photograph the media preview before any of the programming began. It was wild to not just see inside of the building but also the amount of infrastructure the Luminato team, PARTISAN’s architects and many others had brought in: https://www.blogto.com/slideshows/hearn-luminato-2016-toronto/
Step into the Situation Rooms
After photographing the media preview, I had the chance to check out the Situation Rooms by the German theatre group Rimini Protokoll. A project that is hard to explain if you haven’t experienced it yourself and one I haven’t stopped thinking about since.
Situation Rooms is an immersive augmented reality theatre experience. Where you are directed through a series of carefully constructed sets via a narrative playing out on an iPad. During the span of the experience, you become 20 different characters directly involved in war or conflict:
‘Situation Rooms’ gathers together from various continents 20 people whose biographies have been shaped by weapons in a film set that recreates the globalised world of pistols and rocket-propelled grenades, of assault rifles and drones, of rulers and refugees, becoming a parcours of unexpected neighbourhoods and intersections. With the personal narratives of the ‘inhabitants’, the images start to move and the audience follows the individual trails of the cameras they have been given. They start to inhabit the building, while following what they see and hear on their equipment. The audience does not sit opposite the piece to watch and judge it from the outside; instead, the spectators ensnare themselves in a network of incidents, slipping into the perspectives of the protagonists, whose traces are followed by other spectators.
“Situation Rooms” is a multiple simultaneous cinema; augmented reality as three-dimensional as only theatre can be!
I still remember so vividly the moment I was put into the place of a doctor treating the victim of an explosion and requiring an amputation, and then shortly thereafter I was that very victim lying on the doctor’s operation table. This project feels so relevant in our current world now as a sort-of warning.
The power of a Citizenship Ceremony
I again found myself back at the Hearn during Luminato when I was hired to photograph a very special series of citizenship ceremonies, by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.
Epic Night At The Hearn
Next Nobu and David (of Choir Choir Choir) hired me to photograph the Epic Night at the Hearn where over 1500+ people came together to sing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah in the presence of Rufus Wainwright (see photo below):
Check out the other photos from this incredible event, viewable here:
The ChoirChoirChoir video directed by Byron Kent Wong on YouTube has over 14 MILLION Views:
UNSOUND Music Festival
… and then Vice Magazine’s, now-defunct Thump channel hired me to photograph UNSOUND Toronto:
Into the Culture Cave
It was such a memorable ten days, and a number of photos of mine from the festival were later published in the hardcover book “Into The Culture Cave” by black dog publishing.
It has been fun looking back through the hard drives and reliving these four happenings I had the chance to document for BlogTO, ChoirChoirChoir, the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, and Vice Magazine. I am still so grateful for those opportunities!
In my next few posts, I’ll be sharing more recent projects, but I always love a good reason to look back through the archives. Will definitely be doing more of that! Stay tuned.
All photos are my own, and copyright Andrew Williamson Photography (unless otherwise stated)
Thank you for reading (and watching) No AI tools were used in the creation of this post. Any grammatical or spelling errors are the result of my career as a professional photographer and filmmaker and not being a writer. ✌️
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