Sally Buck

Sally Buck worked her way across Canada, living in Montreal, Toronto, Kingston, and Vancouver. She received a BA (Honours) in Art History from Queen’s University, Kingston, and a Master of Visual and Performing Arts in Education at the University of British Columbia. Interested in the multiple ways that people engage with art, social space, and memory, Buck worked in many Lower Mainland art galleries instructing docents and teachers, helping the public interpret art, and listening to people form narratives as they spoke to the artworks. Those 25 years included one stint at the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation in Venice, Italy, before she was told to move on and make room for the thousands of other young people who also wanted to work with that collection.

Her photography has been shown in Canada and the US. She’s written extensively about the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and consulted with galleries and museums who found themselves knee-deep in controversy, or who saw it coming and hoped to avoid it. As a photographer, Buck is particularly interested in the street, specifically portraying the pictorial and social dynamism in interactions between strangers, art, and architecture. She’s trained formally and informally with Vancouver-based and American photographers and in her ongoing collaborations with photographer Kent Lins. She’s fascinated by the role that gender plays while participating in, photographing, and redefining public spaces.