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I’ve been thinking about how communities are formed and how they assume an identity and in particular how communities are built on adversity. I’ve been thinking about the Photography Department at Emily Carr University and I’ve realized that they have built a strong sense of community around how they perceive themselves being treated by the administration at Emily Carr. It is an interesting, and unconscious strategy for community building. That is further complicated by the fact that photography is an industry that is in the middle of radical change. The old analogue processes, darkrooms, chemicals and other ‘heritage processes’ are commercially gone haveing been completely replaced by digital technologies.

‘We have to save the photo department.’ What does that mean? In part, it is a lament for the way photographs used to be made- with wet darkrooms and historic processes- which is how it has been taught for years at Emily Carr.