Quidi Vidi Camera Obscura (a.k.a. Coastal Camera Obscura I), 2014
interactive public sculpture), drawings, documentation

Coastal Cameras Obscura II and III, 2017 and 2023
interactive public sculpture, drawings, model, documentation

Assembled on a gently sloping beach and floated on the rising tide, the Coastal Cameras Obscura provide a multisensory experience for participants entering them by kayak, canoe or paddleboard. The project was first realized in Quidi Vidi Harbour, St. John’s, Newfoundland, for Eastern Edge Gallery’s 2014 Art Marathon Festival. In 2017 a second version was realized as Coastal Camera Obscura in Vancouver’s False Creek in 2017 with Other Sites for Artists’ Projects. Most recently, Coastal Camera Obscura III, floated in the inner waters of Comox’s Goose Spit as part of the Comox Valley Art Gallery’s 2023 Return to Water programming.

2020
interactive public sculpture (camera obscura), documentation

A key focus of Kamloops-based artist Donald Lawrence’s practice has been the merging of art, technology, and science. Through pinhole camera and camera obscura projects, Lawrence’s work draws upon early optical and image-making devices, and centres on conventions of illusion that emerged through the use of these technologies in 19th century European culture (though their origins lay in previous times and in other cultures).  

2018
permanent interactive sculpture (camera obscura), documentation

Commissioned by the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta, this project is now a permanent artwork at the Coutts Centre for Western Canadian Heritage. Launched in June 2011 through a gift from the late Dr. Jim Coutts to the University, the Coutts Centre’s goal is to preserve heritage that is central to Western Canadian culture. East of Nanton, Alberta, the Coutts Centre is a quarter section of land on the more than 100-year-old property that once belonged to Dr. Coutts’s grandfather. It includes the original homestead, extensive gardens and restored outbuildings. This property enables the University of Lethbridge to treat the Coutts Centre as a living classroom, for students, faculty and visitors to make use of the natural setting to study the history, artwork, ecosystems and geography associated with the area. Josephine Mills, Director/Curator of the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, was instrumental in the realization of on-site contemporary artworks on the property.

2015
interactive public sculpture (camera obscura), documentation

Donald Lawrence created the George Black Camera Obscura as part of the Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Festival, an interdisciplinary project initiated and organized by Lawrence and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through Thompson Rivers University. Held in Dawson City, Yukon, in the summer of 2015, the Festival brought together an international group of artists and researchers interested in cameras obscura and related optical phenomenon to explore the meeting places of art and science, and cultural and “wilderness” settings. The Festival was held during the summer solstice, taking advantage of the longest day of the year in order to allow the projects to be viewed most effectively. It featured multiple site-specific installations throughout Dawson City and included coinciding exhibitions at the ODD Gallery and the SOVA Gallery. It also included a wide range of workshops, tours and public talks, all focused around the theme of the camera obscura.

2010
kayak/camera obscura, preparatory drawings and video

In 1907, the German tailor Johann Klepper introduced his design for a folding kayak with a collapsible, skeletal, wood frame assembled inside a skin of rubber and canvas. The Klepper kayak has for the most part maintained the same design since thattime and has been used both as a recreation boat and in solo, Atlantic crossings. Donald Lawrence’s use of the Klepper kayak for coastal excursions– in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides; the eastern coast of Maine; Tasmania, Australia; and the coast of British Columbia– informs his prevailing interest in the meeting place of urban and “wilderness” cultures.

2008
interactive public sculpture (camera obscura), drawing, documentation

One Eye Folly was created for the W.K.P. Kennedy Art Gallery’s Ice Follies exhibition in 2008. Ice Follies is a biennale festival of contemporary and community-engaged art held on the frozen Lake Nipissing in North Bay, Ontario. The biennale encourages audiences to experience art outside the context of the gallery and to engage with the local landscape. The installations, performances and interventions shape a dialogue between art and site. 

1987
interactive public sculpture (camera obscura), preliminary model and planning drawings

Panoramic Camera Obscura was created in 1987 for a temporary sculpture exhibition called The Garden Party during Lawrence’s Masters in Fine Arts studies at York University, Toronto, Ontario. The outdoor exhibition provided a context for the artists to address the surrounding landscape and in Lawrence’s case, the camera obscura was an opportunity to capture the quality of light at this site, an interest that drew artists of the 15th century to use this pre-photographic technology. This work became a precursor for Lawrence’s numerous camera obscura works throughout the 2000s.