Critical Mass Books

“Cage Call: Life in the Hard Rock Mining Belt,” documents the people, land, and work in the mining region of Northern Canada. From quiet landscapes of the surrounding areas, to haunting portraits of the miners, to dramatic, shadowy images inside the shaft, Palu’s images simultaneously tell the humanistic stories of miners, their wives, and communities, as well as those of the industry, history, and tension between labor and enterprise. Identity, community, life, death, all swept together in the folds of light and shadow within Palu’s photographs.

“These images relate to a photographic tradition pioneered by Leslie Sheddon in Nova Scotia, Russell Lee in West Virginia, Bill Brandt in Wales, and Sebastiao Salgado in his more recent images of South American miners. Palu’s mining project also has strong links with Steve McQueen’s video Western Deep, shot in a South African gold mine.”

– Bill Jefferies, Director Simon Fraser University Art Gallery

Softbound, 64 pages, 48 photographs, text by Charles Anguss