Blue Sky Days

From: May 1, 2016 @ 00:00 EDT
To: May 31, 2016 @ 23:59 EDT
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with Tomas van Houtryve
May 1 – 31, 2016
Nikola Rukaj Gallery
Contact Photography Festival
Toronto, Canada

In October 2012, a drone strike in northeast Pakistan killed a 67-year-old woman picking okra outside her house. At a briefing held in 2013 in Washington, DC, the woman’s 13-year-old grandson, Zubair Rehman, spoke to a group of five lawmakers. “I no longer love blue skies,” said Rehman, who was injured by shrapnel in the attack. “In fact, I now prefer grey skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are grey.”

With a camera attached to a small drone, Tomas van Houtryve traveled across America to photograph the very sorts of gatherings that have become habitual targets for foreign air strikes—weddings, funerals and groups of people praying or exercising. He also flew his camera over settings in which drones are used to less lethal effect, such as prisons, oil fields, and the US-Mexico border. The images captured from the drone’s perspective engage with the changing nature of surveillance, personal privacy and war.

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