Photographers

Amy Friend (born 1974 in Ontario, Canada) is an award-winning artist whose work spans photography, installation, and community-based collaborative practices. Her process-driven approach investigates themes of memory, time, history, land, and the fragile nature of photographic objects. Friend is known for creating intimate and poetic connections between past and present, often exploring how personal and collective histories are shaped, lost, and reimagined through images.

Her internationally recognized series “Dare alla Luce” involves gathering vintage or anonymous archival photographs, hand-altering them with perforations, and re-photographing them with controlled backlighting. The resulting images appear illuminated from within, symbolically returning their subjects “to the light.” This technique transforms discarded or forgotten photographs into new works that oscillate between presence and absence, materiality and transcendence. Her later projects continue to blend personal archives, migration narratives, and cosmological symbolism.

Friend’s work has been exhibited widely in North America, Europe, and Asia, including at Paris Photo, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, DongGang Photography Museum, Onassis Cultural Centre, Photoville (New York), Museum London, and numerous galleries and festivals. Her photographs have appeared in major publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Time, GUP, and The Walrus. She has received significant recognition, including Critical Mass honors, selection for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, and various arts council supports. Friend is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts at Brock University and continues to create new bodies of work exploring imagery, illumination, and the poetic resonance of everyday life.