Artists

Janneth Gil is a Colombian-born New Zealander photographer and Engineer who recently finished a Master of Fine Arts, majoring in photography, at the University of Canterbury. Gil specialises in using photography, collaborative practices, community engagement and a broad range of artistic processes as a tool for social change and wellbeing. She focuses her work on making an impact on problems that rise from discrimination and/or excesses of individualism in the hope to encourage the community towards considering dialogue, tolerance, inclusivity and maintaining an informed, empathetic, socially and environmentally conscious society. 

She truly believes in helping others with her skills and uses her photography as a tool for social change to empower, teach, or simply help people to better understand others. Her own social photography-based projects include Our Voices (www.ourvoices.co.nz) depicting the life stories of a group of people living with disability in Ōtautahi/Christchurch and Void. Void is largely drawn from Janneth’s autobiographical narratives exploring themes and ideas about identity construction and trans culturalism in the context of immigration.

In addition to these, she has created the Darkness into Light Project. This project is aimed to find ways to sustain the support shown towards the people affected by the tragic events of March 15th; to keep up the positive dialogue within our public consciousness, and to challenge certain negative perspectives that inevitably linger. The project is also an invitation to take action to strengthen social cohesion in the context of diversity. Under the umbrella of Darkness into Light Project she has created Finding peace – Raising Sakinah, where survivors from the March 15th attacks were invited to participate in a series of free workshops designed specifically for them. These workshops were aimed to provide tools for healing and to contribute to positive social change. 

Some of her work is part of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū and Canterbury Museum permanent collections and the Christchurch City Libraries Ngā Kete Wānanga o Ōtautahi publications. Her artwork has also been displayed at In Situ Photo Project, PhotoForum NZ, Place in Time, and various galleries around New Zealand. 

Janneth has had the privilege to be awarded several scholarships and awards such as the Tohu Kahurangi | Blues Awards in Photography, The Outstanding contribution to University Arts Tohu Kahurangi | Blues Awards, the Ethel Rose Overton Scholarship, Ethel Susan Jones Fine Arts Traveling Scholarship, College of Arts Honours Scholars Award, the Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Award, Canterbury University Art Scholars scholarship, the Friends of the Christchurch Art Gallery Scholarship, the Student of the Year Award at the Design and Arts College of New Zealand and she also was selected as one of the finalists for the ZAFAA18 and the Christchurch Art Show Awards in 2015. She has also been nominated for the New Zealand Latin Awards and the new programme for the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi, Springboard