Lögberg-Heimskringla - 14.07.2006, Side 16

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Gail Einarson-McCleery
Last fall, while on the Snorri Plus Program in Iceland, I discovered a
new second cousin, Joan Berg-
man Waterous. While we were
in Hofsós, genealogist Nelson
Gerrard told us that our great-
grandmothers were sisters.
Joan and I vowed to keep
in touch, and so in June I made
the trek to Brantford, ON where
she lives. I was immediately
overwhelmed with the beautiful
photographs she has everywhere
taken by her son, Gregory Col-
bert. And he has produced not
only photographs, but experi-
ential shows, film, books and
CDs.
Gregory’s latest show, Ashes
and Snow, is a travelling exhibit
of humans and animals in exot-
ic locales. It opened in 2002 at
the Arsenale in Venice, a 13th-
century 125,000-square-foot
shipyard. The show contained
130 images up to 10 feet in
length on sheets of hand-made
Japanese paper and a one-hour
film, a multimedia solo exhibi-
tion featuring moving and still
images of animals and humans
communing and connecting in
the wild.
Designed by Japanese archi-
tect Shigeru Ban, the Nomadic
Museum features 34-foot walls
made of 148 shipping contain-
ers and pillars of two-feet-thick
paper tubing. The rich visuals
are printed in sepia tones and
hang between the pillars.
With the subsequent open-
ing in New York in March 2005,
attended by 500,000 people,
the exhibition began its migra-
tion around the world in the
first-ever Nomadic Museum,
followed by Santa Monica in
March 2006. Ashes and Snow
has no final destination and new
art will be continually added.
Each exhibition is simply a port
of call. The entire collection has
been bought by Rolex.
This world-famous photog-
rapher has made 33 expeditions
over the last 13 years to such
places as India, Burma, Sri Lan-
ka, Egypt, the island of Domi-
nica, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tonga,
Namibia, and Antarctica to film
and photograph the interactions
between human beings and ani-
mals. Elephants, sperm whales
and birds are his favourite top-
ics.
Some of the highlights in-
clude:
• Children crouching in
prayer underneath the out-
stretched trunk of an elephant
• A majestic falcon soars
inches away from the head of a
Burmese monk clothed in flow-
ing white robes
• Gregory and humpback
whales dance elegantly togeth-
er
• A ballet dancer with a
feather in her hand appears in a
temple with a gyrfalcon hover-
ing over her
Gregory was born in To-
ronto in l960. His mother Joan
was born in Winnipeg, the
daughter of Oddney Sigurdson
and Guðjón Ingvar Bergman.
His parents were Guðmundur
Jónasson and Guðrún Jónsson,
who both emigrated to Canada.
On the maternal side, her grand-
parents were Sigurmundur Sig-
urdsson and Svanbjörg Sig-
fússon. Sigurmundur came to
Canada with his mother Oddný
Hannesdóttir, who settled in the
Arnes district of Manitoba.
At an early age, Gregory
exhibited an interest in the arts.
By 1983, he was on his own
in Paris where he began mak-
ing documentaries on social
issues. Filmmaking led to fine
arts photography, and his first
exhibition, Timewaves, opened
in 1992 at the Le Musée de
l’Elysée in Switzerland and the
Parco Galleries in Japan. His
evocative work attracted spon-
sors, which he called his “guard-
ian elephants,” private individu-
als from around the world, most
of whom found him.
His works are in the collec-
tions of many famous people,
including Donna Karan, Lau-
rence Fishburne, Brad Pitt and
Joyce Ma. His pictures have ap-
peared on the cover of publica-
tions such as Interior Design,
Stern, Photo, and The Book
Los Angeles, and articles have
appeared in many other presti-
gious magazines as well as in
newspapers around the world.
Words which have been used to
describe his work include stun-
ning, haunting, dreamlike; one
writer even declared “you feel
like you are in the presence of a
dream, a myth, a fairy tale.”
Gregory is an avowed ani-
mal lover. “Humans commun-
ing with animals” is the way
he describes his photos. He
calls the animals “nature’s liv-
ing masterpieces” and feels our
estrangement from nature dis-
tances people from ecological
degradation and the grave plight
of endanged species.
So he has now announced
the formation of the Animal
Copyright Foundation, under
which one cent of every me-
dia-buy dollar will be given to
a conservation organization.
He calls it “renegotiating our
contract with nature.” He feels
it has the potential to create the
world’s largest environmental
fund.
Family has always been
very important to Gregory. Joan
always attends his openings,
along with other family mem-
bers, and his filmmaker sister
Laurie often accompanies him
on his photographic journeys,
documenting the fact that the
images are real, not altered in
any way.
When Joan went to Iceland,
she was searching for the ori-
gin of the genes which inspired
Greg’s work. She found them in
the creative ways in which Ice-
landers live their lives, many of
whom are so active in the arts
in various ways. One speculates
whether Gregory’s title Ashes
and Snow unwittingly comes
from Iceland’s iconic image of
“fire and ice.”
For more examples of Greg-
ory’s work, visit his website at
www.ashesandsnow.com.
16 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday 14 July 2006
Ashes and Snow
— a photographic journey
PHOTOS: GREGORY COLBERT
Gregory Colbert describes his photos, such as the one above, as
“Humans communing with animals.”