{"id":23345,"date":"2017-08-31T11:19:24","date_gmt":"2017-08-31T15:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?post_type=cu_story&p=23345"},"modified":"2025-01-31T12:12:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T17:12:42","slug":"the-other-nfb","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/story\/the-other-nfb\/","title":{"rendered":"The Other NFB"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n The Other NFB\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Often hailed as the birthplace of modern Canadian cinema, the National Film Board of Canada<\/a> since 1939, has offered young creators a platform to act in, direct, film, and explore new ways of entertaining and educating through documentary and drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s more to the the NFB than just movies and shorts. There is a less familiar side to the NFB. Last May, an exhibition named \u201cThe Other NFB\u201d completed its Eastern Canada tour at Carleton University Art Gallery<\/a>. \u201cEveryone knows the NFB as a filmmaker,\u201d said curator and art history professor Carol Payne<\/a>, \u201cbut they don\u2019t know these still photographs representing Canada from 1941 to 1984.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Unknown
Unknown photographer. Veronica Foster, an employee of John Inglis Co. Ltd. and known as \u201cThe Bren Gun Girl\u201d posing with a finished Bren gun in the John Inglis Co. Ltd. Bren gun plant, Toronto. 10 May 1941. Contemporary print from vintage negative. National Film Board of Canada. Phototh\u00e8que \/ Library and Archives Canada e000760453.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Dyck<\/a>, the director of the Carleton Gallery, invited Payne to co-curate a look into the little known still photography division of the NFB in 2012. Covering three decades, they collected 89 photographs from a staggering archive of almost 250,000 pictures that endeavoured to portray life in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that the NFB mandate was to shape a national image both for Canadians and those beyond the nation\u2019s borders, the resulting images were predictably intriguing and idealistic. The 1941 war-time image of Veronica \u201cRonnie\u201d Foster casually smoking a cigarette on the Bren gun factory line is an example. Another powerful image is the 1953 shot of physiotherapist Mrs. E. Marr encouraging two year old polio patient Dorothy Gifford to learn to walk with braces. These photos were strategically created with the intent to dampen otherwise harrowing societal narratives. \u201cYou don\u2019t see Canada in a full sense, you see this glowing image,\u201d said Payne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Granted, these are but two images out of a quarter of a million which include snapshots of teenagers standing on the sidewalk, Hutterites tending a field, children sticking their heads into maple sap buckets, and Inuit peoples in and around their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Gar Lunney (Canadian). Governor General\u2019s Northern Tour. Three Inuit men (Joseph Idlout stands in the centre) with their Brownie cameras await the arrival of the Governor General, Vincent Massey, at Resolute Bay, Northwest Territories (Qausuittuq, Nunavut). March 1956. Contemporary print from vintage negative. National Film Board of Canada. Phototh\u00e8que \/ Library and Archives Canada e002265651.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Chris
Chris Lund (Canadian, 1923-1983). Examining new arrivals in Immigration Examination Hall, Pier 21, Halifax. March 1952.
Contemporary print from vintage negative. National Film Board of Canada. Phototh\u00e8que \/ Library and Archives Canada PA-111579.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1941 an order from the Privy Council legislated that the National Film Board become the country\u2019s official pho- tographer. Thus, NFB photos were exclusively used by all major arms of the federal government to promote Canada with no exceptions. \u201cSome governmental departments\u2014including Parks Canada in the 1940s for example\u2014continued to shoot their own images but were legislated to stop,\u201d explains Payne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Other NFB was presented at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa in winter and spring 2016 and moved on to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen\u2019s University in Kingston that summer and fall. At Carleton, professors from different disciplines brought their curricula into the art gallery to interact with the unique show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The photography, film, and music of the NFB were examined during the winter 2017 term by Payne working with professors Andr\u00e9 Loiselle and James Wright. Payne taught the MA course \u201cIssues in the Theory and History of Photography.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Payne Book Cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wright and Loiselle taught the course \u201cNFB Music, NFB Film\u201d which hinged on the prospect of writing music for the film industry. Thus, the stills division and the eminent film portion of the NFB effectively placed the organization on a pedestal for many aspiring composers, photographers and filmmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two national institutions now house the NFB\u2019s still photography division collection: Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP), where Carol Payne worked as a curator in the late \u201890s and which is now part of the National Gallery of Canada\u2019s Canadian Photography Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was curating contemporary exhibitions in the late 1990s, and in the middle of the production rooms there were all these file cabinets,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were just sitting there. The archive was eclipsed in the national imagination by the NFB\u2019s celebrated motion pictures units.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2013, Payne published the book The Official Picture: The National Film Board of Canada\u2019s Still Photography Division and the Image of Canada, 1941-1971<\/em><\/a> (McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press) on the \u201cvast but largely forgotten archive of still photographs.\u201d She and Dyck had been talking about an exhibition for a few years. While the book and the exhibition explore the same themes, each is its own project. Both collections are a study of the history of photography in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chris
Chris Lund (Canadian, 1923-1983). Mrs. E. Marr, physiotherapist, with Gifford, 2 1\/2 years old, at the walking bars in the polio clinic at the Sudbury General Hospital. March 1953. Contemporary print from vintage negative. National Film Board of Canada. Phototh\u00e8que \/ Library and Archives Canada PA-111579.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I argue in the book, and Sandra and I argue in the exhibition, is that these photographs and the archive as a whole are not an objective record of Canadian life in the mid to late twentieth century. It\u2019s a history told from an official governmental point of view, to show Canada in a good light. It\u2019s promotional. Bluntly put: it\u2019s propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also maintained that the NFB, as one of the Canada\u2019s most influential cultural agencies, played a key role in nation building and defining Canadian identity through its photographic art. With an exhibition like theirs, Payne and Dyck also demonstrated how archives, no matter their previous intent, can serve as artifacts that inform the present. Many of these photos serve as a reminder of how women\u2019s rights have progressed since the Second World War and how far Canada must go to confront the injustices faced by Indigenous peoples. They also prompt audiences to contemplate Canada\u2019s evolving healthcare system, appreciate our increasingly more diverse population, and consider how the changing face of our physical landscape underscores the dangers of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the conclusion of Payne\u2019s 2013 book, she wrote that \u201cthe point of the study and of cultural history as a whole, was not to re-enter a past, but to reactivate it.\u201d In doing so, the representation of Canada is re-examined as more than just 2D stills\u2014it\u2019s a deep well of reference that should be dipped into again and again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Harry
Harry Rowed (Canadian, b.1907). Women munitions workers enjoy a lunch-time walk with friends at the Dominion Arsenals Ltd. Plant, Quebec City (From left to right: H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Perry, Celine Perry, Roberte Perry, Alphonsine Roy, Laurette Maurice). 24 August 1942. Contemporary print from vintage negative.National Film Board of Canada. Phototh\u00e8que \/ Library and Archives Canada e000760791.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Often hailed as the birthplace of modern Canadian cinema, the National Film Board of Canada since 1939, has offered young creators a platform to act in, direct, film, and explore new ways of entertaining and educating through documentary and drama. But there\u2019s more to the the NFB than just movies and shorts. There is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":23347,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[595,575],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-23345","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-fassinate","cu_story_type-research"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/23345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/23345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51521,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/23345\/revisions\/51521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=23345"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=23345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}