I am pleased to announce that, starting October 2, 2017, Ramen Rambles: Words and Photos by David Firman will be on exhibit at Winnipeg’s Gas Station Arts Centre.
Here are the details:
445 River Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3L 0C3
October 2-31, 2017 (but it will likely run until mid-January 2018)
Monday-Friday, 9:00-16:00 (and during evening performances)
I will be having a public grand opening on October 3 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm so, if you live in, or are visiting Winnipeg, please drop by and say hello.
Ramen Rambles is part of the Flash Photography Festival, which takes place annually in October. While I would like you to see my show, there are many other photographers also showing their work in venues throughout Winnipeg. Check them out, too. For further details, see the Flash website and the online catalogue.
About Ramen Rambles:
I walk. I take pictures. I eat ramen. I love my city. Put these all together and you have Ramen Rambles, a quirky tale of five wintery treks across Winnipeg in search of a good bowl of Japanese soup. It’s a journey through urban landscapes wholly or partially unfamiliar to me (and no doubt, to most people), forcing me to see and experience the city from a fresh perspective.
There are two parts to my show. On the table is Ramen Rambles, the book – a narrative journey in words and photos. On the walls are a selection of prints – collages of words and images reimagined from the book.
If you follow WalkClickMake, you may remember that Ramen Rambles started as several walks that came to life in a series of blog posts combining both photos and words. Those posts were the basis for my print-on-demand book, Ramen Rambles. I’m proud to say that the book was selected for the 2nd Juried PhotoBook Exhibition at the Vermont Center for Photography, August 4-27, 2017.
October’s show reflects a further iteration of the Ramen Rambles tale. Each of the five walks have been re-imagined using the book’s images, words and graphics. On each print, a single image links to a brief text excerpt. A colourful round icon floats behind the text, mapping my path across the city, pinning my location to text and image. Off to the side, a red legend hints at where I am on the map and where I’m going. It’s all madly vague, meant to be explored and assembled by the viewer as something meaningful. Sort of like a good walk.
For the otaku (technical geeks) out there, the prints in this series are made with an Epson wide-body printer with archival Ultrachrome inks. The paper is an exquisitely textured Premio Unryu inkjet washi (Japanese paper) by Awagami Factory, Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. As the manufacturer says, “Unryu paper reflects a classic Japanese aesthetic with subtle cloud-like inclusions made by the layering of long kozo (mulberry) fibres.” It’s an accurate description that I can’t improve upon. Those long kozo fibres add a dimensionality to the paper’s surface that meshes so well with the words and images of my wintery walks.
WalkClickMake’s mission is to “Explore the unlikely intersections of walking, photography and making”. This series of prints is one of those unlikely intersections.
