Something Old, Something New: The Wedding Photography Collection of Stephen Bulger and Catherine Lash
Something Old, Something New explores wedding photography through objects collected over two decades. Featuring items from the Wedding Photography Collection of Stephen Bulger and Catherine Lash, which was donated to The Image Centre in 2023, and spanning various time periods and processes, the exhibition examines the circulation, display, and material production of these images, offering insight into their roles in private and public life.
Assembled over a period of twenty years by the Toronto-based collectors, this unique collection explores the rituals and ceremonies of marriage largely from a Western, heteronormative perspective. It offers an in-depth resource for studying one of the medium’s most long-standing, yet overlooked, practices.
In this three-part exhibition, wedding photography is examined from different points of view. The first section speaks to the circulation of wedding photographs as they mediate between the public and private spheres. The second part examines the ways in which the display and material production of wedding photographs provide insight into their significance as objects of sentimentality. And finally, the third segment explores the impact of the mobile technology of silver gelatin photography on wedding images, iconography, and expectations.
Organized by the 2024–25 second-year students of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Film + Photograph Preservation and Collections Management graduate program. Management graduate program: Samuel Gratton, Elaine Jones, Rebecca Tenaglia, and Harmony Trowbridge. All prints and objects are from the Wedding Photography Collection of Stephen Bulger and Catherine Lash, donated to the IMC in 2023. Presented by The Image Centre.
