Douglas Curran
Described by Tom Wolfe as “not only a photographer… but a reporter and an extremely gifted one,” Vancouver-based photographer and author Douglas Curran investigates the lives of fascinating people and cultures, especially those largely unknown to the wider world. He’s used his camera to document the lives of UFOlogists in Washington state, charismatic preachers in Florida, and Nyau, the secret spirit-dance mask society of the Chewa nationality in Malawi and Zimbabwe.
In 1992, while he was working on a film in Zimbabwe, Curran encountered Chewa migrant miners and farm workers from Malawi. He began several years of photographing them and their Nyau practices, artistry, philosophies, miyambo (ethics), and cosmology, all of which British occupation forces had suppressed for decades prior to the triumph of national liberation. For nine years, Curran filmed on location in Malawi and Mozambique to create the documentary The Elephant Has Four Hearts which explores his experience of Nyau.
Having maintained a career as a stills photographer for major motion picture studios, Curran has worked on over eighty feature films and television projects for which he’s travelled from Baffin Island to Kenya. He’s shot in extreme cold weather and underwater.
Curran has staged over a dozen solo exhibitions, including In Advance of the Landing: Folk Concepts of Outer Space (1981) at the Edmonton Art Gallery, Enigmatic Documents (1996) at Rencontres Arles in Arles, France, and The Elephant Has Four Hearts: Nyau Masks and Ritual (2000) at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. His national travelling exhibitions include METIS (1983 – 1990) for the National Film Board of Canada in Ottawa, Photographs from the Metis Settlements of Alberta (1986 – 1989) at the Edmonton Art Gallery and Alberta Culture, and Structured Paradise: The National Parks Experience (1985 – 1990) at the Banff Centre and Whyte Museum of the Rockies.
Numerous public and private collections house Curran’s working, including those of the Glenbow Museum, the Ottawa’s Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Canada Council Art Bank. He’s received six Canada Council grants, including a Senior Artist Creation Grant, and a Best Nonfiction Award from Alberta Culture and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.
In 1992, while he was working on a film in Zimbabwe, Curran encountered Chewa migrant miners and farm workers from Malawi. He began several years of photographing them and their Nyau practices, artistry, philosophies, miyambo (ethics), and cosmology, all of which British occupation forces had suppressed for decades prior to the triumph of national liberation. For nine years, Curran filmed on location in Malawi and Mozambique to create the documentary The Elephant Has Four Hearts which explores his experience of Nyau.
Having maintained a career as a stills photographer for major motion picture studios, Curran has worked on over eighty feature films and television projects for which he’s travelled from Baffin Island to Kenya. He’s shot in extreme cold weather and underwater.
Curran has staged over a dozen solo exhibitions, including In Advance of the Landing: Folk Concepts of Outer Space (1981) at the Edmonton Art Gallery, Enigmatic Documents (1996) at Rencontres Arles in Arles, France, and The Elephant Has Four Hearts: Nyau Masks and Ritual (2000) at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. His national travelling exhibitions include METIS (1983 – 1990) for the National Film Board of Canada in Ottawa, Photographs from the Metis Settlements of Alberta (1986 – 1989) at the Edmonton Art Gallery and Alberta Culture, and Structured Paradise: The National Parks Experience (1985 – 1990) at the Banff Centre and Whyte Museum of the Rockies.
Numerous public and private collections house Curran’s working, including those of the Glenbow Museum, the Ottawa’s Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Canada Council Art Bank. He’s received six Canada Council grants, including a Senior Artist Creation Grant, and a Best Nonfiction Award from Alberta Culture and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.