© Brady Fullerton
Shutter Hub member Brady Fullerton is a neurodivergent academic and photographer whose photographic work raises philosophical questions regarding themes of isolation, mental health, addiction, and beauty, through a visual exploration of the quotidian and mundane. Brady is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at the University of Guelph and has been an analogue photographer since 2005. He primarily works in a photographic documentary style, preferring the ways philosophical questions are raised in art over the ways they are raised in traditional philosophy.
In 2012 he photographed dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany, with the assistance of the Program for Undergraduate Research Experience (PURE) from the University of Calgary. This project was exhibited in The Little Gallery at the University of Calgary as part of the Exposure Photography Festival in 2014.
In February of 2023, he was exhibited in the Emerging Photographer’s Showcase as part of the Exposure Photography Festival, where he was awarded the Shutter Hub Emerging Photographer award. He has been published in Canadian Art magazine, and his photographs have been exhibited at fine art and philosophy conferences.
In June of 2013, southern Alberta experienced one of the worst floods in its history. In Calgary, the Bow and Elbow rivers burst their banks and spilled into downtown just weeks before the Calgary Stampede. Following the flood, the response of the city and province became a rallying cry for a type of Albertan work ethic. “Hell or High Water,” the Calgary Stampede would declare as enormous forces gathered to ensure the Stampede could continue, that life could go on and that things could return to normal as quickly as possible.
© Brady Fullerton
However, this attitude glorified an Albertan “spirit” tied to an imagined cowboy identity, toxic masculinity, poor land stewardship, and racial injustices. Just like the flooding erased and redefined what Calgary’s downtown looked like for a short period, a rapid return to normalcy also masked numerous injustices and erased the possibility of considering the dangers of the status quo.
© Brady Fullerton
In their strange tranquillity, these images capture a space transformed, reclaimed by nature, and ripe with theoretical prospects left unrealized. On the tenth anniversary of the flooding of southern Alberta, I invite viewers to consider what possibilities the flood exposed and what injustices a return to normalcy quickly erased.
© Brady Fullerton
I invite the viewer to consider how these images create a dialogue around consumerism, capitalism, environmentalism, global warming and climate change, land stewardship, social and racial injustices, and the notion of what it means to be an Albertan.
© Brady Fullerton
I’m so happy to see this project being displayed during the 10 year anniversary of the flooding in the very downtown core it depicts. I believe this is an important project that should be seen by many in order to prompt difficult conversations. In the coming months I will be exhibiting this work with The New Gallery in Calgary, Alberta as part of their billboard 208 program. I also hope to show the work once more before the 10 year anniversary ends. While I don’t like dragging out old projects I am proud to see this project properly exhibited.
To find out more about Brady’s work, visit his Shutter Hub portfolio here and his website here.
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