Reading Pictures

Reading Pictures was an exhibition from the Toronto Photographers Workshop which examined the relationship between image and text. The works required varying degrees of reading and as a result, the texts perform a range of functions in relation to the images. Sometimes that function is a mere suggestion of interpretation, while in other cases it served to explicitly anchor the visual content. In Blake Fitzgerald’s Papered Windows, the viewer was free to skim the headlines found within the subject. The series presented the text as an integral part of the scene, having been placed there for a purpose other than reading. In contrast, Mary Traill’s work was primarily comprised of written material, and that the provided a key to the formation of a mental image. Image and text are often combined to direct the interpretation of the piece as in the work of Traill and Conde / Beveridge.