Yasmeen Strang
After completing a degree in Fine Arts, Strang spent several years honing her craft with renowned photographer, James O’Mara. She shot on assignment in the USA, Canada, and Africa before turning her lens to Fine art photography. Her works can now be found in national and international collections.
Winters Hotel | Mackenzie Heights
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 13 from 6-8pm
Winters Hotel: A Sense of Place began as a documentary exploration chronicling the early footsteps of a friend’s family who immigrated to Canada in the 1960s and settled at the Winters Hotel. The project quickly evolved into a deeper and larger conversation when Strang gained entry into the hotel and access to its intimate and personal spaces.
In 2021, after Strang’s visit, the historic hotel was destroyed by fire claiming the lives of two residents.
The Winters Hotel was built in 1907 and was representative of Vancouver’s growing population and emerging identity. In many ways, over its lifetime, the hotel came to reflect the neighbourhood’s shifting demographics, ultimately developing into an SRO (Single Room Occupancy). The hotel’s loss leaves lingering questions for the neighbourhood, for our city, and for our society at large.
Yasmeen Strang, Winters Hotel: Departure, Edition of 5, Archival pigment print on 100% cotton rag paper
It was a rainy fall day when my friend, Nancy Chapman, and I met in Vancouver’s Gastown. She had asked me if I would photograph the outside of the Winters Hotel. The building had housed her parents for six months in the 1960s when they had first immigrated to Canada from Korea. Nancy was born in that building.
We walked around the puddled streets trying to discern the best angle to photograph the building, all the while Nancy recounting her parents’ life story. I was eager to get the best possible image of the building, invigorated by her accounts of their journey. The stories resonated with me being a child of immigrants myself.
It was out of character for me to knock on the door of the Winters Hotel that day. I’m not sure if it was because I had Nancy beside me or, more likely, that I strongly believed that images of the outside of the building couldn’t possibly portray the lives (and the stories) that had once inhabited it.
After I knocked and pleaded with the manager he gave us access to the building making us promise that we would not disturb the tenants. As we climbed the stairs, I felt my heart beating with excitement at our good fortune. Nancy called her father once inside and he walked us through the hallways that he had once walked.
An empty room, an old telephone, reds and greens, chipped paint and exposed wires. What I would’ve given for more time but I worked quickly knowing how little time I had to capture a few stolen moments.
The building burned down in 2022, two residents lost their lives, businesses were lost. The city was not able to preserve the facade. And now, I find myself with these images of a place that represented so many things: a city’s growth, a neighbourhood’s decline, journeys taken, stories told and lives once lived. It is my hope that these images are a testimony to it all.
We walked around the puddled streets trying to discern the best angle to photograph the building, all the while Nancy recounting her parents’ life story. I was eager to get the best possible image of the building, invigorated by her accounts of their journey. The stories resonated with me being a child of immigrants myself.
It was out of character for me to knock on the door of the Winters Hotel that day. I’m not sure if it was because I had Nancy beside me or, more likely, that I strongly believed that images of the outside of the building couldn’t possibly portray the lives (and the stories) that had once inhabited it.
After I knocked and pleaded with the manager he gave us access to the building making us promise that we would not disturb the tenants. As we climbed the stairs, I felt my heart beating with excitement at our good fortune. Nancy called her father once inside and he walked us through the hallways that he had once walked.
An empty room, an old telephone, reds and greens, chipped paint and exposed wires. What I would’ve given for more time but I worked quickly knowing how little time I had to capture a few stolen moments.
The building burned down in 2022, two residents lost their lives, businesses were lost. The city was not able to preserve the facade. And now, I find myself with these images of a place that represented so many things: a city’s growth, a neighbourhood’s decline, journeys taken, stories told and lives once lived. It is my hope that these images are a testimony to it all.