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Art doesn’t have to start revolutions, says artist Sarah Anne Johnson

Artist Sarah Anne Johnson has been thinking a lot about the responsibility of art — or lack thereof. “I used to think that art could start revolutions. I wanted to believe that so badly,” she said on the phone from her home in Winnipeg.
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Black Box, photo spotting and India ink, by Sarah Anne Johnson.

Artist Sarah Anne Johnson has been thinking a lot about the responsibility of art — or lack thereof.

“I used to think that art could start revolutions. I wanted to believe that so badly,” she said on the phone from her home in Winnipeg. “But when you start getting into that, then the art becomes more like propaganda or can dip into advertising.”

Johnson, who speaks tonight as the University of Victoria’s visiting artist, has adjusted her thinking.

Art has no responsibility unless the artist wants it to, she said. And it doesn’t start revolutions — but that’s not a bad thing.

“It can be part of our evolution, which is way more powerful and important. Revolutions come and go — evolutions are forever,” she said.

Johnson’s own evolution as an artist has frequently involved art with some kind of social message.

Her 2002-05 series Tree Planting mixed real photos of her outdoor work environment with shots of sculpted scenes aimed at capturing a romanticized feeling or memory.

“[Photographs] show you what something looks like, but that’s as far as they go,” she said. “I was trying to illustrate or express this incredible experience I had, so the look of it wasn’t enough.”

Arctic Wonderland was the product of her 2009 trip to the Arctic Circle alongside other artists, activists and scientist with the Farm Foundation. As part of the series, she hand-painted photographs of stark Northern landscapes with fireworks and confetti — symbols of both celebration and short-sightedness, for the way they instantly become garbage. She added looming cubes and pyramids to others, which represented outcomes of human presence in the Arctic.

“People have colonized the Arctic, but they’re trying to blend and be respectful,” she told an interviewer in 2011.

Johnson has also created ongoing projects in tribute to her grandmother, who was among several women unknowingly subjected to CIA mind-control experiments through McGill University in the 1950s, when she sought treatment for post-partum depression. In House on Fire, she explored her family history through augmented personal photographs as well as sculpted figures in a dollhouse. Dancing with the Doctor built on that by mixing performance art and dance.

Activism can come from many places, but Johnson was born with it in her blood.

“My grandpa was part of the NDP party,” she said. “And then, of course, my grandma took on the CIA. So I took on this strong sense of social justice and strong idea of right and wrong.”

But more than her subject matter, Johnson has drawn attention for her craft. In 2008, she won the inaugural Grange Prize for contemporary photography — the largest of its kind in Canada at $50,000. Her work is also in top collections, including the Guggenheim Museum and National Gallery of Canada.

Her photos are almost always augmented or mixed with other media, including sculpture and performance.

She said she still considers photography her primary medium.

“Whenever you’ve studied something so intensely, it becomes a filter through which all your thoughts pass,” she said.

But if representing a particular reality is the goal, it doesn’t get you there alone.

“I think my work is about trying to present a reality and photography is problematic or limited in doing that,” she said. “So I’m forced to go down other avenues.”

asmart@timescolonist.com

Johnson gives a free lecture at 8 tonight in room 162 of UVic’s Visual Arts Building.