Iqaluit photographer’s Nunavut Quest picture featured in Toronto exhibit

Dustin Patar is excited for himself and for other photojournalists across Canada who currently have their work displayed at Toronto’s Union Station.

Patar, an Iqaluit resident, was in Toronto on Monday for the media preview of Points of Departure, an exhibit that showcases pictures from 16 photographers.

“These photos are from across Canada and Canada is a big country,” he said, adding many citizens are uninformed about various parts of the country. “I think these photos, including mine, are a way for them to kind of experience a little bit of that.”

Patar’s picture focuses on two women, Jennifer Quassa and Lindsay Kalluk, who were travelling across the Arctic in April to report on the Nunavut Quest, an annual dogsled race. They are bundled up, as Kalluk scrolls through her cellphone.

Patar is a former staff reporter for Nunatsiaq News. He’s now a freelance photographer and videographer who covered the Nunavut Quest for some media outlets, including Nunatsiaq News.

Patar is also part of the inaugural cohort of the Globe Photo Academy, run by the Globe and Mail Foundation. Participants in the academy have one picture each displayed in the exhibit, which runs until Nov. 1.

Union Station is one of the country’s busiest buildings, through which about 300,000 people pass daily. It is a transportation hub in downtown Toronto featuring arrivals and departures for trains, subways and buses.

Dustin Patar’s photo of Jennifer Quassa and Lindsay Kalluk, who covered the Nunavut Quest in April, is part of a photography exhibit at Toronto’s Union Station. (Photo by Sam Laskaris, special to Nunatsiaq News)

Patar said he was pleased with his photo and that he believes it depicts contemporary life in the North.

“They have lives that are slightly different than the rest of Canada but not that different,” Patar said.

Chris Donovan, the exhibit curator, also spoke highly of Patar’s photo.

“It’s just a really beautiful formal composition,” he said. “I think that Dustin cares so much about the way the North is depicted and sometimes misrepresented by people from the south. So, he takes a lot of care in the way that he documents the North.”

Donovan believes the fact a young person is seen using a cellphone in a cold, northern climate was an ideal touch.

“What he’s doing with that interaction, which I think is very purposeful, is cutting through that kind of stereotypical depiction,” Donovan said.