Leaving (Embarkation 1944)

World War II was for many young men raised in rural Alberta an opportunity to leave the community, explore the world and to learn a new trade. In 1944, my grandmother commissioned a photographer to film her son as he said goodbye to his fiancée and the family.

Titled, “Embarkation,” super eight movie was viewed by the family at every family reunion and slowly the film disintegrated into lost and shifting color, torn and scratched surface. The movie became for me the whole of the experience. These 12 birch panels are a collage of movie stills.