By: Maya Barillas Mohan, Staff Writer
Due to toxic masculinity, a taboo still exists around conversations about men’s mental health struggles or their ability to sustain healthy relationships. This mirrors the relative inaccessibility of arts spaces for many communities, due to both physical constraints and financial costs. A newly-developed digital photo exhibition by the Men’s Health Research program at UBC brings a fully-rendered gallery directly to you at your desktop computer. The program’s Men Building Intimate Partner Relationships project intended to “chronicle the connections between masculinities and men’s intimate partner relationships with an emphasis on equitable and sustainable partnerships.”
The exhibit resembles a traditional gallery from the graphics: digitally designed to look like laminate hardwood flooring. There are pillars “supporting” the second floor, and a flight of stairs to click your way up. You can pause in the middle of the stairs and check in on the gallery from an elevated vantage point. Underneath each picture lies a short caption with a title, participant age, and where the photo came from. Clicking on the image brings forward a brief blurb about the story captured inside.
The first floor of the exhibition’s 3D rendering is dedicated to topics like domestic work and honouring sentimental partnerships. Many of the photos tell stories about how relationships require collaboration in domestic duties to foster the feeling of connection; several entries describe the way cooking responsibilities are shared. Some of my favourite photovoice entries go beyond domestic life and branch into the larger world. One tells about how a more outgoing partner encourages “coming out of [his] shell,” and another couple of participants from Ontario write about a ritual of taking turns picking out pastries from a stretch of cafés along a street. A shared pastry parade seems to perfectly embody the research group’s goal of describing sustainable and equitable partnerships and their importance for men’s mental and physical health.
Browsing the gallery felt like going through a camera roll. Each photo was spontaneous and casual, without the usual posture “professional” photographers apply. I think there is something very comforting about how this project incises into the daily lives of men in situations any viewer is likely familiar with too; one entry attaches the meaning of perseverance over hardship to a set of concrete stairs, and another uses a photo of a restaurant cheque case to explain that money isn’t everything, rejecting a trope in toxic masculinity that men are breadwinners of a household. My favourite picture is one in the “top 30” gallery with a message of how deviations in routine break monotony and add colour to the tedium. Most of the entries in this gallery are classically picturesque, but I am drawn to this image of a cracked cement block imbued with coloured tiles as mortar because it shows fragility within brutalism (an architectural style that emphasizes minimalism and texture over design). “Perfection” is a moving goalpost, so embracing deviations from the plan is a valuable skill to have and even more important to be able to share.
Musing through the variety of forms a healthy relationship can take is inspiring because it proves that gender hierarchies are not only dissolving around the world, but that the barrier of candid dialogue is being lowered too. By verbalizing and visualizing strategies for sustainable relationships,
this digital gallery rests at a very important precipice for nurturing a culture of compassion and tenderness.
Visit the Men Building Intimate Partner Relationships photo exhibition using the Men’s Health Research Program’s website.
