VIEWING ROOM:
Naomi harris

Artist Statement

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Naomi Harris (b. 1973, Toronto, Canada) seeks out interesting cultural trends to document through her subjects. Monographs include “America Swings” (TASCHEN, 2008), which documents the phenomenon of the lifestyle; “EUSA” (Kehrer Verlag, 2018), a reaction to the homogenization of European and American cultures through globalization; and “Haddon Hall” (Void/Masa Books, 2021), her first and oldest photo project, where she followed the last remaining elderly snowbirds in a Miami Beach hotel at the turn of the millennium. Having lived south of the border for 22 years, Naomi moved back to her childhood home of Toronto in 2018 after her father broke his hip…eight months later she also became her mother’s caregiver when she was diagnosed with cancer. The experience informs her current ongoing project “The Indecency of Mourning,” an investigation into western society’s aversion to death, dying and grief. During the pandemic she received her MFA in Studio Art from the University at Buffalo, graduating in August 2022 (and contracted Covid at the dentist). Currently she’s managing burnout, exploring pottery, discovering the joys of being an executor and figuring out where to live and what life after caregiving looks like.

For the first 20 years of my career, I had been a documentary photographer and portraitist seeking out interesting cultural trends to document through my subjects as I have an innate ability to put people as ease gaining access to otherwise closed communities. Recently my practice has taken a significant turn and I’m now pursuing mixed media and performance art with myself as the focus.

Previous projects include “Haddon Hall” (1999 - 2002), a series on the last remaining elderly residents at a hotel in Miami Beach which I lived in for two months before relocating to Miami for two years to continue photographing. It was co-published by MAS and Void Books in 2021.

While living in Miami I discovered the phenomenon of swinging and documented over 40 parties across the U.S. in “America Swings” (2003 - 2008). It was published by TASCHEN in 2008 as a limited collector’s edition and re-released in 2010. The book includes an interview of me by artist Richard Prince.

My next project “EUSA” (2008 - 2015) is a reaction to the homogenization of European and American cultures through globalization and was published in 2018 by Kehrer Verlag.

A self-proclaimed hobo, I’ve taken many a road trip with my trusty sidekick Maggie, a Shih Tzu whom I rescued off a Native Reservation in Saskatchewan in 2011 while driving across the country for my series “Oh Canada.” In 2017 she accompanied me as I drove around America searching for answers as to how Donald Trump won the presidency for a project called “First 100 Days.”

In 2015 I began to turn the camera onto myself. Always a Bridesmaid (2015 - 2018) examines how it feels to be a single woman in a world that glorifies happy couples. Performing a “solo wedding” in Japan and offering myself as the maid-of-honor to couples getting married in Las Vegas, I explore the deeply ingrained cultural idea that being in a union is the goal to strive for while remaining single is a something to pity.

In the summer of 2018, I embarked on a 70-day canoe trip, accompanied by a guide, dressed in 19th century period costume, channeling British painter Frances Anne Hopkins along the fur trader’s route of the 1860s. The performance I, Voyageur: In Search of Frances Anne Hopkins was documented using analog, digital and historical processes.

Both these projects are an investigation into feminism and our roles in society. As a middle-aged woman I’ve been experiencing my diminished role not just within the art world, but from society as a whole. We exalt youth and beauty in our popular culture, advertising and on social media. All industries within Western culture reward fleeting youth and beauty at the expense of everyone else. At my age, I not only deal with gender disparity, but ageism as well. By giving once invisible women like Frances Anne a voice, I empower their legacies and my own.

After spending my formative years as an artist in the United States, I returned to my childhood home in Toronto, Canada after my father fell and broke his hip. Eight months later my mother was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare form of blood cancer, and I became her caregiver as well.

In September 2020, the week I entered graduate school, my father died. Working through the loss of my father while caring for and experiencing anticipatory grief for my mother, my MFA thesis The Indecency of Mourning was an investigation into death, dying and grief in modern society.

As their sole caregiver until their deaths (mum died in November 2022), my personal experience set the groundwork for my continuous research interest: the critique of the representation of death, illness and aging in popular culture. Focusing on these largely ignored themes, I question Western society’s approach and how we regard those experiencing grief. People’s discomfort and consequent inability to be empathetic is, to some extent, a result of the sanitization by media and popular culture of these normal life occurrences.

Our aversion to these tough, taboo topics is an uncomfortable conversation I’m tackling.

My role as artist is also that of navigator into these experiences no one wants to talk about let alone look at, all while giving myself license to explore my own aging and immortality.

Like artists Sophie Calle, Roz Chast and Marth Rosler, I approach the subject matter with acerbic humour. Death is a universal and inevitable experience and by taking a comedic approach I’m able to broach difficult subject matter in a more amenable way – think of it as putting the fun back into funeral!

Since the death of my mother, I have taken a hiatus from this, and frankly most artwork. Grief can be crippling and show up in the form of physical ailments. Swimming, curling (a sport I recently embraced), and caring for my senior dog Maggie have all been helpful in taking care of my own health while figuring out what the next chapter of my life looks like as I plan to leave Toronto, possibly Canada, after selling my parents’ home. Recently I’ve discovered a love for pottery which is a balm for the mind while working out creative ideas in a way I’m not familiar with.

HADDON HALL

Haddon Hall was the last of the old-time hotels that housed those senior citizens who wished to remain in South Beach. Upon eviction from other hotels many of the beach’s displaced elderly ended up here. The dilapidated hotel offered the pensioners a place to live at a relatively reasonable price. The tiny rooms equipped with a single bed, a television with lousy reception, and a small kitchen to make their meals. What started out as a project about Holocaust Survivors turned into an alternative one that showed that the elderly are survivors in many ways. While some had indeed lived through war and persecution, others were simply surviving the daily struggles that are associated with being aged and on a fixed income.

I moved into the hotel in December 1999 for two months to make myself familiar to the residents, gaining their trust and friendship, relocating from New York to Miami for an additional two years.

Photographed between 1999 and 2002, Haddon Hall is not only a documentary of the hotel’s last days as a place where retirees could live out their golden years but marks the end of an era as there are no longer any pensioners wintering in South Beach having been replaced by the fabulous people who flock to Art Basel, five-star restaurants and swanky hotels.

Haddon Hall received the 2001 International Prize for Young Photojournalism from Agfa and Das Bildforum, honorable mention for the Yann Geffroy Award from Grazia Neri, and was a finalist for the 2001 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. In 2019 it was shortlisted in numerous book dummy contests and won first place in the FUAM book dummy contest. As the winning submission it was co-published by MAS and Void Books in November 2021. The project was also awarded Second Prize in the Kassel Dummy Award and was a finalist for the Images Vevey Book Award and for the Skinnerboox Award.

Artist Naomi Harris, Haddon Hall book flip thru

FIRST 100 DAYS

On January 20th, 2017, Donald J Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America. On that same day I set out on a road trip around the country coinciding with Trump's First 100 Days photographing and speaking with Americans affiliated with both parties as well as those who didn't vote, or could not vote due to voter disenfranchisement. In total I drove through 25 states and a portion of the border with Mexico, ending the journey on April 29th, Day 100, in Niagara Falls, NY.

First 100 Days was Vice Magazine’s cover story in June 2017.

The People You Meet While Photographing Trumps America. Daily Vice spotlight on artist Naomi Harris.

AMERICA SWINGS

While living in Miami Beach in the early 2000s, I frequented Haulover, the nude beach to photograph my fellow nudists and soon discovered many of my fellow beach goers were also swingers. Fascinated by the idea that you don’t really know somebody just by outward appearances, I decided to strap on a tool belt and infiltrate the world of middle-class mate-swapping. Over the course of 5 years (2003 to 2008) I traveled across the U.S. attending over 40 swinger parties to document the phenomenon of swinging.
America Swings was my first monograph, published by TASCHEN in October 2008. This limited-edition book was edited by Dian Hanson and includes an interview by artist Richard Prince.

Artist Naomi Harris, America Swings promotional video

ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID

Always a Bridesmaid explores how it feels to be a single woman in a world that glorifies happy couples. I traveled to Kyoto, Japan to perform a solo wedding, or marry myself. Designed for the single woman who knows they will never get married but would like to have photos of themselves in a wedding gown while they “are young and beautiful,” I was intrigued considering I was a 42-year-old self-proclaimed spinster with little hope in getting married. While all my friends were married or in long-term relationships I sort of “forgot” to do it myself, subscribing to the school of thought that “I’m alone but not lonely.” Additionally, I’ve been offering myself as maid-of-honour to couples getting married in Las Vegas. Through the resulting photographs I’m exploring the deeply ingrained cultural idea that being in a union is the goal to strive for while remaining single is a something to pity.

EUSA

Artist Naomi Harris, EUSA Kickstarter video

EUSA (2008 - 2015) is a portrayal of American themed places around Europe and European themed places in the US, a reaction to the homogenized, indistinguishable world community, a direct result of capitalism and globalization. These locations are a perception of fantasy and an homage to a heritage that isn’t one’s own. Both sentimental and idealized, these inaccurate depictions stem from our fascination with the “other,” a memory of past history and a sense of what the other wishes today’s reality would be. What was once characteristic has now ultimately become a caricature.

EUSA was published in 2018 by German publisher Kehrer Verlag and was shortlisted for the Luma Rencontres Dummy Book Award in 2016.

Artist Naomi Harris, EUSA book flipthru

Photographer Naomi Harris Captures America With a Point & Shoot Film Camera, Daily Vice 2016

HOLLYWOOD FUREVER

Inspired by the photographs of cinemas golden era photographer of choice George Hurrell and the kitschy cemetery located across the street from Paramount Studios “Hollywood Forever” I decided to do a series of pet portraits I call Hollywood Furever. The idea was to re-create the look of Hurrell’s iconic studio stage, but with animals.

Topic ran a selection of these images in their May 2018 issue and focusing Instagram famous pets.

I, VOYAGEUR: IN SEARCH OF FRANCES ANNE HOPKINS

In the summer of 2018, I embarked on a 70-day canoe trip dressed in 19th century period costume, channeling British painter Frances Anne Hopkins. Hopkins travelled the fur trader’s route three times with her husband and the Voyageurs during the 1860s. Having sketched their daily life, upon her return to England she made large-scale paintings of these scenes, the only documentation of what the fur trade looked like. Being married to a high-ranking member of the Hudson’s Bay Company granted her access to something most European women would be prohibited from doing. By signing her paintings simply “FAH” and concealing her identity as a woman, she ensured her paintings to be exhibited in the Royal Academy of Arts. My intention was to explore what it meant to be a female artist during the 19th century compared to today and see how, if at all, the art world has changed for women in the last 150 years.

I, Voyageur: In Search of Frances Anne Hopkins was funded by a Canada Council for the Arts’ ‘New Chapter’ Grant, awarded in honor of Canada’s 150th anniversary allowing winning artists an opportunity to take the course of their art in an entirely new direction.

Utilizing a variety of photographic practices including alternative processes, analog and digital and exhibiting ephemera from the journey such as my dress and canoe, I create a mythological world where I cross in and out of Frances Anne’s life. The work was shown for the first time at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery in the summer of 2022.

OH CANADA!

In the summer of 2011, I set out on a four-month long road trip across Canada and photographing from coast to coast, thanks to a Canada Council for the Arts grant. Being Canadian but having lived in the United States for 14 years at that point, I was more familiar with America and felt estranged from my own country. Looking at the landscape and residents through the eyes of a stranger, I maintained a fresh perspective devoid of predictable clichés. Often misunderstood and misrepresented, in making Oh Canada! I wanted to create a project both beautiful and enlightening. Using portable lighting and photographing people in their natural setting, these environmental portraits sheds light onto who a Canadian is.

While there’s a long history of photographers taking road trips, the documentary road trip has traditionally been a male dominated genre. Whether it’s because of the lonely solitary nature of being on the open road and the danger associated with it, or that women typically are caregivers with family obligations, I was eager to buck this trend.

And it was on this journey that I united with my dog Maggie who was pregnant with six puppies at the time.

HOLLYWOOD ENDINGS

Naomi Harris, excerpt from artist video Hollywood Endings

INDECENCY OF MOURNING

Naomi Harris Curtains anticipatory GRIEF, 2022

Death, dying and grief are humanity’s greatest equalizers. No matter our color, class, marital status, sexuality or religion, we share two things in common: we all lose loved ones and we are all going to die. What began as my Masters thesis, The Indecency of Mourning (2020 - ongoing) is an investigation into the representation of death, dying and grief in popular culture. Though death is a universal and inevitable experience, people’s discomfort and consequent inability to be empathetic is, to some extent, a result of the sanitization by media and how it glosses over one of the most significant events of life: the end.

Death and dying is a universal and inevitable experience. My role as artist is also that of navigator into these experiences no one wants to talk about let alone look at, all while giving myself license to explore my own aging and immortality. Broaching this difficult subject matter with acerbic humour, the work is regarded as more amenable and accessible to an audience.