April Hickox

April Hickox (born 1955) is a Canadian lens-based artist, photographer, teacher and curator whose practice includes various medias, from photography, film, video and installation.
Hickox has said about her works of the last 10 years, "I think in my work, I have always worked with history, place and a sense of self, and sometimes language, communication and voice". Hickox has created works surrounding numerous themes including landscape, history, memory, site… Hickox's works are largely based on narratives which record aspects of humanity and nature and explore the relationship between the two with collective memories from human histories and activities.
Hickox is the founding director of Gallery 44 Centre For Contemporary Photography, as well as a founding member of Tenth Muse Studio and Artscape.
Early life, education and career.
In 1955, April Hickox was born in Oakville, Ontario. She and her family moved to Toronto Islands when she was 3 years old.
In order to continue to explore interests in photography, Hickox went to London to study photography and graphic design in Twickenham College of Technology from 1973 to 1974. Hickox returned to Canada for the 5th year graduate studies program at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, where she obtained an AOCA degree and further explored her interests in photography and printmaking from 1974 to 1978.
Hickox lives on the Toronto Islands from which she derives much of her inspiration. Her personal experiences as a mother of a deaf daughter also contribute as inspirations for her works, such as her installation work Within Dialogue which shows the visual representation of language and communication across individuals and cultures.
She is an associate professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design University.
Works.
Hickox' has created works surrounding numerous themes including landscape, history, memory, site, language, communication and voice ... Hickox's works are largely based on narratives which record aspects of humanity and nature and contribute to the deeper understandings of its relationship with collective memories from human histories and activities.
Landscape.
Since Hickox move to the Toronto Islands at an early age, she has experienced the frequent change of the island's environment caused by human intervention. The relationship between natural landscape and human intervention has been considered by Hickox and become a central theme of her work for over thirty-five years.
Memory.
A lot of Hickox's work contains images of collected objects, from either people on the Toronto islands or her own collection such as the series named "Gather".
"Crystal, Porcelain, Glass", 2002.
"Crystal, Porcelain, Glass" is a series of photos of broken tea cups or the fragments of various broken objects. They were either held by a variety of hands in various positions or being repaired and stacked in what appears to be a fragile tower. All of the broken objects belong to an older woman who had died on the Toronto Islands. They were collected by Hickox from a bridge that is often called the "free bridge". In an interview, Hickox described her work as "a recycle of life and change". From this project, Hickox started to think about people who were gone, the houses that were clearly lost and what was left behind. This work eventually led into the series "Landscape + Memory: An Island History" in 2003.
"Memento", 2007.
"Memento" is a series of images of family heirlooms, which incorporate a photographic element. All the heirlooms were collected from Hickox's female friends and have been passed down through generations. There is always an intimate story behind each heirloom, the objects act as reminders of loved ones who have passed away. However, all the photographic portraits from the heirlooms are rarely identified and the significance of the photos has been shifted. "Memento" not only records all the stories but also helps to reflect the fragility of the connection and physicality.
Landscape + Memory.
"Landscape + Memory: An Island History", 2003.
Since Toronto Islands contains one of Toronto's oldest residential communities, the work "Landscape + Memory: An Island History" explores the links between the physical landscape, as it is today, and the memories of that landscape. All the sites in Hickox's photographs were once part of a thriving community whose homes were demolished in the 1950s. The photographs record how the land has changed after the demolition of the homes, capturing the remaining flora and landscape that now covers the resident's old home in each photo. Hickox demonstrates this work as the "traces and evidence of the past".
"Point Pelee: Landscape and Memory", 2004.
"Point Pelee: Landscape and Memory" was commissioned by The Art Gallery of Windsor in 2003. Point Pelee has a similar history to the Toronto Island in that it was once a vibrant community before the land was purchased in the 1970s to develop a national park. Over the years, Hickox has observed the changes that have taken place in the park and documented the overlapping layers of human and natural histories through photographing. The exhibition aims to "evoke a dialogue on the history of our region, environmental issues, and the way in which communities evolve over time". According to Hickox, the big difference between the project "Point Pelee: Landscape and Memory" and "Landscape + Memory: An Island History" is that there are less traces and evidence of the past found in the project Point Pelee. Since people tried to plant new indigenous species in the park, the residents plants had been removed.
Language, communication and voice.
As an artist as well as a mother to a deaf daughter, April Hickox started to explore the photographic works on the themes of language, communication and voice which had become her main focus in the past ten years.
"Can You Hear Flowers?" 1994.
"Can You Hear Flowers?" was produced based on Hickox's personal experience as a mother to a deaf daughter. These experiences were transformed into a site specific work outside the Power Plant in Toronto. According to April Hickox, "the garden consisted of four sensory gardens. The idea for this work came from the question of a deaf child. Adult responses impact on a child's perception of the world around her."
"Within Dialogue," 2000.
"Within Dialogue" is an installation work which consists of 100 photographs of mouths in the motion of communication. In 2000, "The Globe and Mail" reviewed an April Hickox's exhibition "Within Dialogue" in Toronto's Leo Kamen Gallery in the news article Hickox's Photographs ""Speak Eloquently from Silenc"e". It was mentioned that the 150, small, black and white photographs of mouths embodies Hickox's fascination with the mouth and paradoxical silence. The diverse pictures of the human mouth reflect a wide range of potential identities from the deaf to the hearing. There is also a sense of associated emotional and personal experiences as the mother to a deaf daughter. April Hickox also collaborated with Tom Third on the audio component of "Within Dialogue" to provide viewers an infused experience of sound and silence.
Feminism.
Hickox often uses photography as media to record images of women or female objects from the past, she mainly focuses on how they reflect female identity and self-recognition throughout time.
"Lives of Girls and Women", 1972–1973.
This series of works, completed between 1972 and 1973, contains fourteen images of Barbie doll clothing to reflect how gender stereotypes are imposed by social structures and pressures, ultimately expressed through popular media of the society. There are fictional conversations constructed under the typical representational clothes from women's magazine. Barbie doll clothes largely reflected the changing trends in women's clothing and lifestyle since their creation. Hickox borrows the Barbie doll clothes and combines them with a new narrative to present the changes in not only the representations of women over time but also the changing thoughts and life experiences of women throughout recent history.
"Women", 1999 – 2001.
This series of work consists of 9 portraits of women over 50 in age. In these black and white photographs, the women display a reflective look while closing their eyes. In this series Hickox is trying to explore the inner strength of these women and question the relationship between these women and the viewers of the images, questioning photography as the means for communication. The representations of women were derived based on the concept of women being the carrier of family memories over generations. However, in contemporary meda, mature women usually appear invisible compared their young and beautiful counterparts, while their experiences and values are also underestimated by society. From viewing the thought provoking portraits, one could reduce the misunderstanding of the mature woman from who they truly are.
"Echo", 2010These works are representing different types of hand-mirrors as a traditional female object. People would use the mirrors to see their reflection make the adjustments to their makeup/hair that they felt they needed. These actions made Hickox consider about the self-being presented in the public, and that that self may be different from the ones we truly are and what we truly believe. Nevertheless, the mirrors being photographed are unable to reflect as the mirror images are transformed into a sea of black by the scanning process. The reflection is no longer available.
"Dialogue", 2012.
These works picture a young girl in different moments of her life. According to Hickox, these photos of a young female represents snapshots of her daughter's life in the information age. She demonstrates her work as "I see these images not so much as a portrait of my daughter, but as a portrait of a moment in time that could exist in the lives of many women in our Digital Age". Therefore, these works bridge the dialogue between this general representation of moments of a young female and many other women's life moments.
"10x10", 2014.
This work consists of five portraits of couples gazing toward the viewers in various settings. These photographs were a commissioned work for the Toronto base 10x10 Photography Project to celebrate the LGBT Canadians in the arts.
Portraits.
"Toronto Island Workers", 2009 – 2013.
This series of work consists of over 90 public installation pieces of life-size photographs of city staff (farmers, gardeners, lifeguards, maintenance workers, etc.) on the Toronto Islands between 2009 and 2013. In the CBC interview of April Hickox, it was mentioned that the City staff are an important part of the local community who produced the opportunity to relax with their hard works. According to April Hickox, these workers should be recognized for their investments in jobs physically, emotionally and spiritually toward building the safe and beautiful environments. In fact, the installations of the works actually made the workers happy by recognizing them instead for their contribution to the city, instead of being invisible to the general public. April Hickox was appreciated by the islanders for drawing attention to these workers and reminding them not to take the environment for granted. April and colleagues presented the photographs to the visitors, making the social engagement and interactions between the installed photographs and viewers possible.
Teaching.
As a past chair of the photography department at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) in Toronto from 1998 to 2007,
She is currently employed as an associate professor of photography at OCAD. Hickox has previously held academic appointments at the following institutions: Ryerson University (1997), Canadore College (1989), Art Gallery of Ontario (1985–89), and University of Toronto (1985–90).
Community involvement.
Hickox has served as a member of several charitable and academic organizations in Toronto from 1997 to 2013. To mark the beginning of this involvement in 1997, Hickox served as a founding member of Gallery 44 Center for Contemporary Photography, a non-profit studio in Toronto where she held the position of director for seven years. Gallery 44 is an artist-run initiative whose mission statement is providing affordable resources to support photography-based artists.
Hickox is also a founding member of the Toronto-based Tenth Muse Studio, and Artscape, which she acquired the position as a committee member for the Founding board of directors in 1998. Through Artscape, Hickox directs artists' residencies and studio rentals on Toronto Islands under the Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts.
From 1997 to 2000, Hickox was the Advisor and Training Coordinator for Arts and Crafts at Silent Voice Camp for the Deaf, in honour of her deaf daughter Alex. She simultaneously became a part of the Manitoba Mentoring Artists for Women's Art in Manitoba, CA. From 2010 to 2011, Hickox was responsible for building an online art collection as part of her role as guest curator for the Line Art Auction held by the LGBT Youth Line at the Art Gallery of Ontario Between 2010 and 2013, Hickox held the position of committee member for Project 31, a fundraising auction that supports OCAD University. In 2013, Hickox also fulfilled the committee membership role as the Co-Curatorial Chair for the Art with Heart event at the Casey House Fundraising auction of Canadian Contemporary Art to support HIV/AIDS.
Collections.
Works by April Hickox are held in, among others, 