JUDIANNE GRACE | Ethereal Emotions

A Conversation with Photographer Judianne Grace

Photos by Judianne Grace

Words and Interview by Tommy Moore

Judianne Grace is an Indigenous artist, photographer, model, educator and mother who currently resides in Vancouver, BC Canada, but her roots and heart are in her home territory of Stl’atl’mix nation in Interior BC.

Her work captures emotions and relationships in an intimate and cinematic fashion that is uniquely authentic. Judianne sat down with DAYBREAK's Tommy Moore to talk about her creative process and her relationship with the lands that she was raised on.

Judianne Grace: I’m in Vancouver, but I’m from I’m from Lillooet, BC, which is interior BC. It’s beautiful. You’re surrounded by mountains. It’s very rural and a very small town. Lillooet is a street long and there’s not much else to it.

Tommy Moore: Is it a single stoplight kind of town?

JG: I don’t even think it has a stoplight. No, there’s no traffic light now that you say that. There are two four way stops and that’s it. It’s amazing. It’s probably the most beautiful place to me personally on the planet. But you know, it’s tied to myself and my roots. There’s lakes, there’s rivers, there’s hiking. There’s animals that can kill you. There’s animals that won’t kill you. It’s pretty great. It’s a desert, but it rains.

TM: Did you start getting into the creative world when you were still living there? Or was that something once you moved and were more in the city?

JG: I split my time between Vancouver and there. My dad was chief, so he always lived up there. My mum worked for the government, so she lived down here. There was always that back and forth for me, so I’ve always lived in both places. But I come from a very creative family. I would say it’s more what was introduced to me from when I was two or three, and being allowed to draw and do whatever I wanted. I’d say started very young in both places, but I do find being in Lillooet, or in the interior, much more inspiring. I find it more difficult, and I kind of have to search and look in new ways, in the city, because I find it very overwhelming. That’s why I’m always leaving the city. It’s too much noise.

TM: It’s sometimes counterintuitive too, because I feel like being in the city feels so restrictive because there’s such a breadth of things. You’re overwhelmed, but are always seeing the same thing. There’s something that’s so nice and expansive about being somewhere where there’s nothing in sight.

JG: Or even what’s in sight is so large and vast. Lillooet sits in a bowl of mountains, so it’s just surrounded by them. It’s very humbling.

TM: I’d like to talk a little bit about your personal relationship with those lands, and about how you think you’ve started to frame your practice around the lands that you grew up in.

JG: I feel like I am figuring that out currently, and that there actually could be more relationship to it. My personal relationship, of course, is tied to the lands up there. That’s where my umbilical cord was hung in a tree. There’s a lot of indigenous traditions that, for me, have taken place on that land. So there’s a very deep connection, both spiritually, and to family and my ancestors. But I think when it comes to my work, I’m still trying to find where I’m making those. I’m like, do I make that connection obvious in my work, or do I not? I try to be very conscious when I’m taking photos about where I am and why I’m there, but at the same time, I feel like this is an area that I actually need to think more about. I need to be more intentional with the way that I’m approaching it.

"My personal relationship, of course, is tied to the lands up there. That’s where my umbilical cord was hung in a tree. There’s a lot of indigenous traditions that, for me, have taken place on that land. So there’s a very deep connection, both spiritually, and to family and my ancestors."

TM: That’s fair. I was just reading through this idea where anything you’re doing is a practice. Everybody will say my practice is this when in reality it’s a never ending marathon of trials and errors. Trying to explore and figure out what you’re doing innately and what you can hint on more or less. It’s one of those things where it will be ever-evolving, in terms of trying to figure out what that is.

JG: Absolutely. I think that it’s important to not get stuck thinking you have it figured out. I feel like that’s a very dangerous place to be, because that’s when you stunt your own growth. I feel there’s always something to learn, there’s always something to explore. To be a lifelong learner—that’s a big thing for me. I think you can sell yourself short if you think you’ve figured it out, or you’ve been successful in some way. That doesn’t make you, or me, or anyone an all-knower. I still find it funny when I get asked to do interviews, because I’m like, "Wow, I don’t even know if I know what I’m talking about."

TM: I mean, I don’t think any of us really do to an extent. And I like you said, the people that say they do, those are the people I’m a little weary of.

Do you think with your work in the outdoors, and especially those regions, is there some sort of purposeful connection between the lands and using film?

JG: You know, I think if there is, it’s somewhat unintentional. I present it, I think, in a very ethereal way. Which is what I want my photos to come across like, but at the same time, I’m working through de-romanticizing and trying to use anti-colonial perspectives. When you’re approaching something that way, I really need to slow down. I find that if I have a digital camera, I’m focusing on taking photos at nature, where I’m just constantly shooting. As opposed to with film, if I see something that blows my mind way, I’m still going to stop, pause, and think about it. I question myself more. I only have so many shots, so I pause and I think about it. I ask myself a lot, "Is this something that I actually need to take a picture of, or is this something that’s just okay for my memory?" I find that because there is that limitation, unless you’re bringing 50 rolls of film, I’m forced to slow down where I can just be there. Maybe that’s the connection where it just doesn’t, at least for me, feel as authentic if I’m constantly shooting.

"To be a lifelong learner—that’s a big thing for me. I think you can sell yourself short if you think you’ve figured it out, or you’ve been successful in some way. That doesn’t make you, or me, or anyone an all-knower."

TM: I think that makes sense, too, with how much your relationships with the people around you are tied into your work in the outdoors. When I’m shooting with my friends, my favorite thing to do is shoot film because, like you said, you’re focusing on the moment rather than on the screen. There’s something that’s so much less stressful about it, because it’s just it happens, and then you figured out later.

JG: That’s a really great point where you’re not looking back at the screen to see what you’ve shot. You understand that nature’s imperfect and that your imperfect. There’s just so much imperfection and there’s less of a focus on trying to nail something. I find if I’m sitting in that mentality my photos look very inauthentic.

TM: I think that comes out because getting genuine emotion in photos is one of the most challenging things to do, and so many people are terrible at it. I think that’s something you’ve become really strong in. Even when I say emotion, it’s not referring to someone’s smile being authentic. It’s the actual, ingrained feeling of whatever that shot is. It could be with people, or it could be with the landscape, but it seems like that’s something you’ve put a lot of work into.

JG: Yeah, it’s been important to me, because it’s part of why I haven’t actually shot with models or people I don’t know. That’s been a really important step for me with being able to convey emotions, or those in-between moments in such a specific way. Because, again, as a photographer, I don’t want to feel like I’m just shooting at people. I’m understanding that there’s agency happening between me and the camera, between who’s in front of the camera and me. So I very much want the viewer of my photo to feel as if the photographer was a part of the moment. Which is much more difficult to do, in my opinion, to do with somebody you don’t know. Even though you can still get really beautiful moments, I find that I need to meet somebody two or three times before I’ll even start shooting them. There needs to be that reciprocal relationship of friendship. So 95% of my photos are just my friends and people that I know. You understand the tiny little nuances of how they work, and then you are naturally part of that moment as well. So the viewer’s not going to feel removed from the moment that’s happening. They could even probably envision themselves in it, which has been really important to me.

TM: It starts to remove that whole idea of staged. That’s the case whenever I work with people I don’t know, which is not that often, either. I struggle posing people because it’s so much better just working with people that you know. It’s so loose and easy where it breathes an authentic feel naturally.

JG: It does. It’s I think a skill I could acquire eventually. A part of it, too, is the way that I take photos. I’m looking for that cinematic feel that’s part of a part of a larger story, and you’re getting a snippet of that story. I find a lot of the time it’s me road tripping with friends, or going somewhere with friends. All of that happens in those moments where sometimes they’re not even aware that I’ve taken out my camera and taken a couple of photos. It’s not necessarily organized as a shoot.

TM: I completely agree. That’s my preferred way to go about it all, too. If it’s a two week trip, by day five nobody bats an eye when they see the camera, no matter how well they knew you before. It’s just part of your arm.

JG: I’m working with that piece of having that be a part of my arm. I think though it’s one of those things that people know I’m coming on a road trip it’s always me saying, "Is it okay if I just constantly on my camera? Are you okay with being photographed?" I just find that I get those special reactions that I would only know are going to come if I know the person well, and more genuine interactions between people as well. A lot of my photos depict more than one person. Those people all know each other generally, and they’re all friends in some way. That’s a really important piece for me with trying to create photos that depict genuine interaction between others, because it’s really hard to guide people who I don’t know.

TM: Then you have, on the far end, what people would normally see in standard wedding or engagement photos. I feel like there’s this missed gap in the center of friendship love and that level of connection and relationship. It’s usually looked over or shown in different ways, and I think that’s something interesting that you’re tackling.

JG: It’s a work in progress. That’s interesting, especially during the pandemic, when you’re wanting to be creative, and you’re wanting to shoot, but you can’t because there are so many limitations. It’s made me focus more on how I can make landscape photography more interesting. That’s been a bit of a focus for me lately. I like to take something and just try to twist it just a little bit.

TM: That’s the experimentation point of it. It’s a constant battle to figure out what those little nuances are and how to somewhat master them.

Is there anything else that you’re that you’re really trying to chase down right now, in terms of your practice, or your growth as a creator?

JG: I would say there’s multiple avenues that I’m taking with this. One is academically. I’m applying for my masters, and what I want to propose is research in the visual arts, through photography, and tackling the things that we don’t really want to think about that come with photography. Where we have so much power with the camera that we hold, and we are choosing within those moments to capture a moment that could become history in some way. We’re choosing what that history is going to look like. Photography has a real power to portray something very specifically. What are the ethical components that come along with that? I want to explore the voyeuristic sense of having a camera on you all the time and what that means, as well as consent within those spaces. Then using it as a pedagogical practice, because in my life outside of being a creator, I teach. It’s more within that realm, especially within early childhood. That’s the academic side, and then I would say creatively, I’m really searching to create more meaning and mature my work. I feel that it’s been this beautiful, cinematic, very youthful approach, which has been amazing, but now I’m looking to mature it a little bit. Not that my work wasn’t intentional before. It’s very intentional in terms of women and their bodies and de-sexualizing to try and create a safer world for women to be in their bodies without being sexualized all the time. I want to take all that and question how I wrap that in with anti-colonial concepts of the way that we approach nature. I want to challenge concepts of wilderness and showcase things like, say logging, for example. I want to focus on being indigenous, and how can I be challenging, disrupting, and pushing boundaries on things. I’d say that means that my work is going to have a bit more of a maturity. Still focusing on imperfections and blur and movement, because that’s what I love, but with more emotion.

"We’re choosing what that history is going to look like. Photography has a real power to portray something very specifically. What are the ethical components that come along with that? I want to explore the voyeuristic sense of having a camera on you all the time and what that means, as well as consent within those spaces."

"It’s very intentional in terms of women and their bodies and de-sexualizing to try and create a safer world for women to be in their bodies without being sexualized all the time. I want to take all that and question how I wrap that in with anti-colonial concepts of the way that we approach nature."

ETHEREAL EMOTION

A Conversation with Photographer Judianne Grace

Photos by Judianne Grace

Words and Interview by Tommy Moore