FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Reave Dennison: Tree Work
Dates: March 19–May 9, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, March 20, 7–10pm
Location: Pale Fire, 870 E. Broadway, Vancouver BC V5T 1Y1
Link to Press Package
Reave Dennison is an analogue photographer who documents maritime and forestry labour in the Pacific Northwest. Tree Work presents a selection of new black and white photographs that Dennison took while working as a beachcomber, sawyer and arborist over the past five years. Once a tug boat operator, Dennison focuses his camera on the conditions he works in, shooting the material culture and remote environments of these disciplines candidly and intimately. He develops and prints his silver gelatin photographs in his dark room on Mayne Island.
While forestry is a primary industry in British Columbia, there is relatively little familiarity with the roles these people play in the economy or the landscape. Like the fascinating rise and fall of beachcombing in BC, experiences and skills embedded in this industry reveal impacts that shifting political, ecological and technological conditions have on the social fabric of this region. Dennison’s work takes us into this subject through a uniquely integrated practice of photography.
A featured exhition in the Capture Photography Festival
IN ADVANCE OF FORTHCOMING PUBLICATION …
Pale Fire will also release Dennison’s first photography book, Under 60 tons this spring. Co-designed and co-produced with Information Office, the book features over 160 images that he took while working as a crew member aboard small, versatile tug boats, which are classified as ‘under 60 gross tons’. These boats are being retired by companies in favour of larger, more stream lined vessels to comply with the tightening of Transport Canada regulations. Dennison’s photographs capture crew members who navigate marine machinery, infrastructure and the elements, including hands on chart work, compass work and manual labour. Many of these skills and duties are being rendered obsolete by technology. Dennison observes and reflects on this industrial and cultural transition.
Under 60 tons is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, John & Helen O’Brian, Jane Irwin & Ross Hill, and Claudia Beck.
ASSOCIATED BIOS
Reave Dennison is a photographer living and working on Mayne Island, British Columbia. Actively working within the trades, his primary focus is documenting labour in the Pacific Northwest. He recently presented his project Under 60 Tons at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia, Victoria (2025), the Vancouver Maritime Museum (2023) and the Gibson’s Public Art Gallery (2022). A forthcoming artist book of this project is being co-published by Pale Fire and Information Office (2026). reavedennison.ca
Pale Fire is an art gallery in Vancouver, BC, Canada that was established by Amy Kazymerchyk in 2022. The gallery currently presents eight to ten week exhibitions, while establishing a foundation upon which it can nurture long term relationships with artists, audiences, collaborators and patrons. With time, the gallery’s program will expand to include site specific, temporal or ephemeral satellite projects.
In her curatorial practice, Amy Kazymerchyk has paid attention to moving image and time-based practices in dialogue with visual art, cinema, performance, and poetics. Previous to opening Pale Fire, she was the Curator of SFU Galleries’ Audain Gallery, the Events and Exhibitions Coordinator at VIVO Media Arts Centre, and Programmer of DIM Cinema at The Cinematheque. She inaugurated Pale Fire in part, to synthesize the aspects of artist run, academic and commercial art culture that are best suited to support artists at this time.
Pale Fire name is borrowed from a monologue in Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens: “… the moon's an arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:” (Act IV Scene 3 488-95 ). Timon proceeds to describe how the sun, moon, earth and sea all derive their most vivid traits from one another, however, symbiosis fouled by greed turns to theft. Fire may be the defining element of the twenty-first century. Its generative properties continue to foster knowledge, technology and culture, and metaphysically it imbues us with insight, passion and faith. When fire is exploited–as we’re experiencing–it quickly renders inner and outer landscapes parched, feverish and scorched. palefireprojects.com
Capture Photography Festival connects Vancouver to the world through lens-based art. Launched in 2013, Capture Photography Festival is Western Canada’s largest lens-based art festival. Annually in April, lens-based art is exhibited at dozens of galleries and other venues throughout Metro Vancouver as part of the Exhibition Program, alongside an extensive Public Art Program, an Events Program that spans tours, films, artist talks, and community events as well as an educational partnership with Emily Carr University and Critical Image Forum, The University of British Columbia.
Capture’s vision is to connect Vancouver to the world through lens-based art. The Festival acts as a platform to expand visual literacy through lens-based art; strives to give voice to traditionally underrepresented communities and to present compelling, urgent lens-based art. We aim to connect communities to incite meaningful dialogue between artists, curators, audiences, organizations and institutions. Capture is committed to presenting perspectives from diverse backgrounds and members of underrepresented groups. capturephotofest.com
Information Office is an art book publisher and design practice. The office approaches publishing as a meeting of curation and design, emphasizing projects that collaborate with artists and cultural institutions. Past and frequent collaborators include Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (Vancouver), Vancouver Art Gallery, Julia Stoschek Collection (Berlin/Düsseldorf), The Vinyl Factory UK, Environmental Design Archive at UC Berkeley, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Simon Fraser University Galleries (Vancouver), The Cinematheque (Vancouver), The Polygon Gallery (North Vancouver), Schinkel Pavillon (Berlin), The Power Plant (Toronto), Ikon Gallery (Birmingham), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Museu Picasso (Barcelona), and the Seattle Art Museum. i-o.cc
