William Eakin

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

William Eakin is an accomplished Canadian photographer who has taught at
the University of Manitoba and the University of Victoria, and whose
work resides in the permanent collections of the Canadian Museum of
Contemporary Photography, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Banff Centre,
and the Edmonton and Winnipeg Art Galleries. This catalogue of a
2001–02 exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery features 30
black-and-white plates of originals taken by Eakin between 1993 and
2000.

In her foreword, WAG director Patricia Bovey notes that Eakin’s
photographs “have the uncanny ability to situate personal memories
within a broader context of shared experience.” James Patten, the
WAG’s curator of Contemporary Art and Photography, elaborates on this
theme in his lucid and informative introduction. He demonstrates how
everyday objects in Eakin’s photographs transcend the contexts of
kitsch, camp, low culture, nostalgia, sentimentality, and banality. He
also discusses the uniqueness of Eakin’s photographic, printing, and
developing techniques.

The catalogue will appeal to photographers, instructors, and students,
as well as cultural historians and researchers interested in Eakin’s
place in Canadian photography.