Event Info
The Last Resort: Photographs by Arifin Graham
Black & white portraits of the people and places of Lahaina and Maui.
12:00pm - 4:00pm
Free
Opening: Friday 8th March 2024
Opening Friday, March 8, 6–8pm — Artist talk at 6:30
Event Description
In 2022, Arifin Graham created a portfolio of black & white photographs of the people and places of Lahaina and Maui. With the destruction of Lahaina by fire in 2023, the images offer a glimpse of a rich, complex community, and a reminder of what we’re at risk of losing in the time of climate change.
Exhibit Dates: Friday, March 8 to Sunday, March 17, 2024
Exhibit Opening: Friday March 8, 6-8pm - Artist Talk at 6:30pm
Gallery hours:
March 9-10, Sat-Sun, 12-4pm
March 15-17, Fri-Sat-Sun, 12-4pm
“We must learn to become conservationists of memory. Otherwise, the damage we have done to our planet will cost us our past, as it may have already cost us our future.”
—Omar El Akkad, The World As We Knew It: Dispatches From a Changing Climate, 2022
“You can leave it all behind, sail to Lahaina … They call it Paradise, I don’t know why, you call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye.”
—Glenn Frey & Don Henley, Eagles, “The Last Resort”, Hotel California, 1976
On Earth Day 2022, on the road to Mala Wharf in Lahaina, the first three images came quickly, within minutes: An unhoused woman sitting by a public washroom; a man showering outdoors; two heavily tattooed entrepreneurs making a sign for their flea market the next day. It came as an epiphany—by one definition, “an experience of sudden and striking revelation.” Arifin Graham knew immediately that these photographs should be in black & white, and that the title of the portfolio would be “The Last Resort.” So began a photographic journey of a place that he had come to know and love during many visits over three decades.
On August 8, 2023, most of Lahaina burned and, like so many others, Arifin continues to be deeply saddened by that event. So much was lost: 100 lives, places of magic and enjoyment for locals and travellers from around the world, thriving businesses, historic neighbourhoods and homes where countless generations had grown up and raised their Families.
The destruction of Lahaina immediately gave the 2022 photographs a new historical context. What are the lessons from the losses of Lytton and Lahaina, and are we willing to learn them? What price are we willing to pay for our way of life? As the bumper sticker says, “There Is No Planet B”. This portfolio is a simple reminder, reflected in the faces and places of Lahaina and Maui, of what is now at stake.
Artist Bio
Arifin Graham was born in an 18th-century cottage nestled amid the rolling hills of Kent, England, and soon after was whisked away to the wilds of 1950s rural Alberta. Dispatched to boarding school in small-town Ontario at the age of 11, he thereafter survived two years of pretending to study at UBC. A keen photographer from an early age, Arifin next attended the San Francisco Art Institute, studying black & white photography under Jerry Burchard and longtime Ansel Adams colleague Pirkle Jones. Arifin returned to England in the late 1970s, whereupon he met by chance two pinstriped advertising executives over a pint in a London pub, who offered him a job at their firm. He thereby embarked on a career in graphic and book design, later working with clients such as the David Suzuki Foundation, The Dalai Lama Center, and the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Arifin moved with his wife Wiluya to Victoria in 1990, having completed a BA (Art History) at UBC, and later an MA (Leadership) at Royal Roads University.
On Earth Day 2022, in a moment of inspiration, Arifin began the series of black & white portraits of the people of Lahaina and Maui, which form the nucleus of his upcoming show at The Chapel Gallery in Victoria.
Venue
Our not-for-profit Art Gallery presents original artwork, fr...
600 Richmond Avenue Victoria BC
Open / Operational
In-Person Event
Sat. March 9th 2024 + Add to Calendar
The Chapel Gallery
