The series by Brittany Carmichael was selected by Erica McDonald, Creator, DEVELOP Photo, and Rafael Fuchs, Gallery Owner, Fuchs Projects, during portfolios reviews organized by The New York Chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP NY) on February 18th, 2015, in New York.
Brittany Carmichael is a New York based artist, originally from Toronto, Canada. In 2014, she obtained an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in Photography, Video and Related Media. Carmichael’s photography examines the relationship between the place someone comes from, and the external forces that shape who they become.
Athabasca River – the title of her recent work – is an ongoing project that documents the environmental disfiguration the Oil Sands development has wrought on northern Alberta, and how it has radically altered the lives of the First Nations and Metis people and their landscape. By canoeing from Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan, and camping along the remote riverbanks, Carmichael was able to witness the resilience and vitality of the Athabasca River system and its people. In spite of great transformational change and physical degradation, this river system still physically and spiritually nourishes the communities of the region.
