Exhibition No. 20

April 24 - May 16, 2025
Reception: Thursday, April 24 | 5:00PM - 9:00PM

The SPAO Photographic Arts Centre proudly presents EXHIBITION NO. 20, a special anniversary exhibition showcasing the outstanding work by students enrolled in the only 2-year photographic arts college in all of Canada.

For 20 years, SPAO has challenged traditional approaches to photographic education, innovating and carving new paths forward for our community along the way. Students are provided the opportunity to experiment with digital, analogue and rare historic photographic processes, as well as engage in nuanced discussions in photographic theory. Industry leading educators and arts professionals help guide these students as they become the next generation of photo-based artists.

RICCO

Ricco’s interest in photography-based art began at eight when he received a plastic camera as a Christmas present. Within the past few years, Ricco has transformed his hobby into a full-time creative passion and now presents himself as a practicing photographer. Ricco uses photography to illustrate the emotional isolation that living in foster care for eighteen years had on his life. Whether it is a group of bare trees shrouded in snow, a lone Blue Heron fishing for food in the fog, or a strip mall void of cars and people, scenes of stillness, silence, and resilience trigger a desire to create art. 

ADAM KENNEDY

Adam Kennedy is a photo maker, whose work creates an archive of the present, gathering imagery that captures the varying emotional experiences of everyday life. His work is grounded by two distinct pillars: capturing his own experiences of living with mental illness, as well as the experiences of others and our relationship with the natural world. Going beyond his subjects, he is interested in the physicality of the photograph itself and how the medium alters the way an image is read. As a photo maker, the method and tangibility of Kennedy’s works depart from a commercialized assumption of being a photographer, where intention is embedded in each photograph he creates.

ELSA FRANCES WIEBE

Elsa Frances Wiebe (b. 2004) is a photo-based textile artist working on the unceded land of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people, or “Ottawa”. Their practice is currently based in observation, collection and mindful curation of photographic moments and materials, as well as creation through experimentation. By repurposing textiles, they explore the relationship between material and memory, incorporating them with the photographic process to alter the past, present, and future of the materials and memories. Their work has been featured in the juried art prize Figureworks® (2025) and in i-D magazine, and they were awarded the Sheila Durno Memorial Scholarship in 2022. She has a portfolio certificate from the Ottawa School of Art and is currently receiving her Production and Portfolio Diploma from the SPAO: Photographic Arts Centre (2025).

JESÚS VALERDI

Jesús Valerdi’s relationship with photography began when he was a child‭. ‬His parents, uncles, and grandparents would gather to look at photo albums, in which the stories accompanying those images made him feel like part of something greater‭. ‬What is it that he captures with his camera? What does his work feed on and consist of?

Witchcraft and immigration share a remarkable ability to adapt and survive despite marginalization and rejection‭. ‬Witchcraft has endured over the centuries, transforming and adapting to changing circumstances‭. ‬Immigration, in turn, has been a constant throughout human history; despite restrictive laws and attitudes, people continue to move‭. ‬Furthermore, both witchcraft and immigration challenge the control and definition structures imposed by authorities‭. ‬In various cultures, religious and political authorities have attempted to suppress witchcraft, seeing it as a threat to their authority‭. ‬Similarly, immigration, by crossing national borders and challenging citizenship norms, is perceived as a challenge to the power structures that define what is considered legitimate or acceptable within a nation‭. ‬

TERRY HUDSON

Terry Hudson (they/them) is an artist from Ottawa, Canada working in various media including 35mm film, 120mm film, analog collage, acrylic paint, and digital photography. Storytelling motivates their practice, often having  a written narrative behind each series they create. Their work often features noise, grain, overlays, candy colours, high saturation and contrast. In their practice, Terry will continue exploring different mediums to create narratives that can be used as social commentary. 

FELICITY HAUWERT

 Felicity Hauwert is a Black Nova Scotian and Dutch visual artist concerned primarily with memory, its construction, and visual embodiments. They view their practice of creation-based research as being inherently relational, and come to image making from an auto-ethnographic standpoint that engages familial, non-familial, and land-based relationships. Through their practice, they continue to be occupied by the deep historical, aesthetic, and visual ties across the Black Atlantic.

 What’s in a souvenir? How is the construction of canada's national identity predicated on Black erasure? I asked myself these questions while examining the iconography painted across these souvenir china plates. What I saw were illustrations that did not reflect the histories I heard about Nova Scotia growing up. Instead, I saw colonialism’s process of self-invention - imagery that forms the foundation of canadian “culture.” In transferring images I have taken of my family onto provincial souvenir plates, I establish a dual process of obstruction across foreground and background, illustrating the concealment of Black Nova Scotian history in colonialism’s processes of rewriting.

TIM RAHRER

Tim Rahrer is a Canadian photo-based artist with extreme curiosity, who creates work through deep observation in an experimental, research-driven practice. He has studied at the Ottawa School of Art and is currently completing the full-time diploma program at the School of the Photographic Arts Ottawa (SPAO). His work incorporates the confluence of analog and historical photographic processes with contemporary technologies, exploring themes including exposing the unseen in the world around him, the environment, and chronic illness in a personal and social context.  He lives and works on the traditional and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation (known otherwise as Ottawa, Ontario). 

SANTIAGO MOLINA

Santiago Molina is a multidisciplinary artist living in Ottawa. Molina is never truly not creating. Even when art seems absent, he remains in quiet conversation with it. What appears to be loss is, in fact, a kind of renewal—art not as a steady stream of output, but as a lifelong dialogue with himself and the world. Over the past year, drawing became his emotional anchor, while his photography turned inward. He no longer captures others but instead traces subtle reflections of himself. Even in stillness, Santiago is never apart from his practice; it lives within him, unfolding with time. 

What are nine days in the duration of a lifetime? Nine days is an unusual span: longer than a week, shorter than ten. It invites us to reflect on its worth, to consider how much value our time really holds.

THE OBSERVER

The Observer is a 21 year old student photographer living in Ottawa, Ontario. Using the dry plate process, the work that has been created in this series is documentary in nature. Photography to the Observer is like becoming a different person, a place where the scary and unpredictable never needs to be understood. The Observer dislikes daylight because it lacks the eerie, unsettling atmosphere that nighttime provides—and they see nothing wrong with that. After all, it's human nature to sleep when it's dark.

Interested in applying to our two-year college diploma program? Learn more about the program, the work of past students, and alumni achievements by clicking any of the images below.