{{Short description|Canadian photographic artist}} {{Infobox artist | name = Sandra Semchuck | image = | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1948 | birth_place = Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada | death_date = | death_place = | nationality = | field = Photographer | training = Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, 1970 Masters Degree in Photography, University of New Mexico, 1983 | movement = | works = | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2018) | spouse = James Nicholas (d. 2007) }} '''Sandra Semchuk''' (born 1948) is a Canadian photographic artist.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=24295 |title=Sandra Semchuk |website=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=2016-11-12 |archive-date=2016-11-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161112142221/https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=24295 |url-status=live }}</ref> In addition to exhibiting across Canada and internationally, Semchuk taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design from 1987 to 2018.<ref name=":0 " >{{Cite book |last=Bassnett, Sarah; Parsons, Sarah |url=https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/photography-in-canada-1839-1989/key-photographers/sandra-semchuk/ |title=Photography in Canada, 1839–1989: An Illustrated History |publisher=Art Canada Institute |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-4871-0309-5 |location=Toronto |language=English}}</ref>

In 1998, Presentation House, Vancouver, British Columbia, programmed "How Far Back is Home ..." a 25-year retrospective of Semchuk's career highlighting her relationship to identity, morality and land.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://presentationhousegallery.org/exhibition/how-far-back-is-home-sandra-semchuk/|title=Sandra Semchuk: How far back is home… - Presentation House Gallery|access-date=2016-11-12|archive-date=2016-10-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019062620/https://presentationhousegallery.org/exhibition/how-far-back-is-home-sandra-semchuk/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Sandra was awarded a grant from 2008 to 2015 from the Canada First World War Internment Fund to complete her book on Ukrainians in Canada, ''The Stories Were Not Told: Stories and Photographs from Canada's First Internment Camps, 1914-1920''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.internmentcanada.ca/grant-funded.cfm|title=Grants &#124; Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund &#124; 202-952 Main Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R2W 3P4 &#124; Phone: 204-589-4282 &#124; Toll Free: 1-866-288-7931|website=www.internmentcanada.ca|access-date=2021-09-25|archive-date=2021-03-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210303210106/https://www.internmentcanada.ca/grant-funded.cfm|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Career == Semchuk was raised in a close-knit Ukrainian-Canadian community, which greatly informed the theme of interconnected identity in her practice.<ref name=":0 " /> Her work from the late 1970s involved dialogue and collaboration with her parents, partner, and young daughter.<ref name=":0 " /> Semchuk's early photographic works have been said to belong to a "broad general category of documentary".<ref>Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003.DèsLibris Canadian Electronic Library. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 June 2004. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. p. 65</ref> Her photographic portrait works from this era, more specifically her 1982 series of eighty-seven photographs entitled ''Excerpts from a Diary,'' address themes of death and family <ref>Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003.DèsLibris Canadian Electronic Library. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 June 2004. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. p.218</ref> whilst presenting a narrative of "self-examination and transformation" through her use of self-portraits and images containing domestic and prairie backgrounds.<ref>Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003.DèsLibris Canadian Electronic Library. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 June 2004. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. p. 220</ref>

Penny Cousineau-Levine, the author of ''Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination'', writes of ''Excerpts from a Diary'' that the journey of Semchuk's protagonist "follows the structure of classic initiatory voyages of descent and return, death and rebirth, the prototype of which is the Greek legend … of Orpheus, who, grief-stricken at the death of his wife, descends to the underworld to convince the god Pluto to allow her to return to earth."<ref name="auto " >Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003.DèsLibris Canadian Electronic Library. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 June 2004. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. p.223</ref> Cousineau-Levine goes on to state that these photographic sequences "take the shape of heroic descent into darkness and peril, into an experience of death and nothingness followed by rebirth, a transformed relation to the self, and a renewed connection to life", something that she claims offers "an understanding of death that is particularly relevant to Canadian photography."<ref name="auto " />

=== Collaboration with James Nicholas === James Nicholas and Sandra Semchuk were married until Nicholas died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2007. Nicholas was a Cree artist from Nelson House, Manitoba. He suffered extensively in residential schools as a child.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://unsettling2014.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/969/|title=Residential school trauma and healing: the art of James Nicholas & Sandra Semchuk|last=missnesbitt|date=22 December 2014|access-date=12 November 2016|archive-date=19 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019101119/https://unsettling2014.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/969/|url-status=live}}</ref> Their collaborative work focused on the multiplicity of relationships to land, cultural geography, settler and indigenous relationships and memory.<ref>Kunard, Andrea, and Carol Payne. The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2011. Print.</ref>

=== Collaboration with Skeena Reece === In 2013, Sandra Semchuk worked with performance artist Skeena Reece on a piece titled ''Touch Me'' for the exhibition ''Witnesses: Art and Canada's Indian Residential Schools.'' During this performance, Reece and Semchuk struggle with themes of forgiveness and mother-daughter relationships as Reece bathes Semchuk.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dowell|first=Kristin|date=Spring 2017|title="Residential Schools and "Reconciliation" in the Media Art of Skeena Reece and Lisa Jackson"|journal=Studies in American Indian Literatures|volume=29|pages=116–138|doi=10.5250/studamerindilite.29.1.0116|s2cid=164907414}}</ref>

== Education == * 1983 Master's degree in Photography, University of New Mexico<ref name="auto1 " >Semchuk, Sandra. Coming to Death's Door: A Daughter/father Collaboration: October 19 to November 24, 1991, Presentation House Gallery. North Vancouver, BC: Gallery, 1992. Print.</ref> * 1970 Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan<ref name="auto1 " /> * 1970 Professional "A" Teachers Certificate, Province of Saskatchewan<ref name="auto1 " />

== Select solo exhibitions == Source:<ref name="concordia.ca " >{{Cite web|url=http://art-history.concordia.ca/eea/artists/semchuk.html|title=Sandra Semchuk|website=art-history.concordia.ca|access-date=2016-11-12|archive-date=2008-03-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080329221727/http://art-history.concordia.ca/eea/artists/semchuk.html|url-status=live}}</ref> * 2016 ''The Stories Were Not Told'', Comox Valley Art Gallery, Courtenay, British Columbia<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.comoxvalleyartgallery.com/exhibitions/stories-not-told/|title=The Stories Were Not Told|access-date=2021-09-25|archive-date=2021-01-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118164541/https://www.comoxvalleyartgallery.com/exhibitions/stories-not-told/|url-status=live}}</ref> * 1998 ''How Far Back is Home . . . .'', Presentation House, Vancouver, British Columbia<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://thepolygon.ca/exhibition/sandra-semchuk-how-far-back-is-home/|title=Sandra Semchuk: How Far Back Is Home…|date=2011-01-19|website=The Polygon|language=en-US|access-date=2020-03-03|archive-date=2020-03-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200303222257/https://thepolygon.ca/exhibition/sandra-semchuk-how-far-back-is-home/|url-status=live}}</ref> * 1991 ''Coming to Death's Door'', a daughter/ father collaboration, Presentation House, Vancouver, British Columbia * 1991 ''Moving Parallel: Reconstructed Performances from Daily Life'', Photographers Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Prince George Art Gallery, Prince George, British Columbia; University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Waterloo, Ontario; Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario; Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario; MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan; Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary, Alberta; Floating Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Gallery 44, Toronto, Ontario * 1990 ''Paralleling the Bird'', Forest City Gallery, London, Ontario; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia * 1986 ''Ritual, the Photographic Sequence'', Forest City Gallery, London, Ontario * 1986 The Coburg Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia * 1982 ''Excerpts from a Diary'', Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan * 1979 The Photographers Gallery, London, England * 1975 The Photographers Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan * 1973 The Photographers Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

== Awards == * Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2018){{cite web |title= Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts |url=https://en.ggarts.ca/the-awards/winner-archives |website=en.ggarts.ca |publisher=Governor General of Canada |access-date=2022-08-17}}

== Collections == Source:<ref name="auto1 " /> * Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver * Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa * Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Regina * Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa * Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina * Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton * McKenzie Art Gallery, Edmonton * Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon * Mount St. Vincent University of Art Gallery, Halifax * Museum of Modern Art, New York * Photographers Gallery, Saskatoon * San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco * University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

== Publications == * Bassnett, Sarah; Parsons, Sarah. "Sandra Semchuk" in ''[https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/photography-in-canada-1839-1989/key-photographers/sandra-semchuk/ Photography in Canada, 1839–1989: An Illustrated History].'' Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2023. {{ISBN|978-1-4871-0309-5}} * Semchuk, Sandra. 2018. "The Stories Were Not Told: Canada's First World War Internment Camps." The University of Alberta Press. Print. * Semchuk, Sandra, and Laurel Tien. "Telling Story! Voice in Photography: An Online Visual Art Critical Studies Program Evaluation." International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 5.3 (2004): n. pag.ProQuest Education Journals [ProQuest]. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. * Semchuk, Sandra. Toward Real Change: My Photographic Work Done in Saskatchewan from 1972 to 1982 and in New Mexico from 1982 to 1983. Diss. U of New Mexico, 1983. Albuquerque, New Mexico: U of New Mexico, 1983. Simon Fraser University Library Catalogue. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. * Semchuk, Sandra. 1991. Coming to Death's Door: A Daughter/Father Collaboration. North Vancouver: Presentation House Gallery, 1992. Print. * Semchuk, Sandra. 1989. Moving Parallel: Reconstructed Performances from Daily Life. Toronto: Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, 1989. Print.

==References== {{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Semchuk, Sandra}} Category:1948 births Category:Artists from Saskatchewan Category:Canadian photographers Category:Living people Category:People from Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan Category:Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners