At the Chester Fields 2025 Opening Celebration on Saturday, May 31, the winners of The Polygon Gallery’s annual teen photography showcase were announced. Congratulations to the winner Athanasios Ross from Handsworth, as well as the runners up Camellia Fazlali from Sentinel and Kate Macphail from Point Grey.

Chester Fields is a professionally juried photography exhibition for high school students. Initiated in 2009 and named for The Polygon Gallery’s former home at 333 Chesterfield Avenue, the programme proposes a theme for artists to respond to through an original work of photographic art.

This year’s prompt Shadow Play was shaped in the context of the forthcoming exhibition Star Witnesses, on view at The Polygon Gallery this summer.

The exhibiting artists and winners were selected by a jury comprised of artist and writer Lucien Durey; Capture Photography Festival Curatorial Assistant Khim Mata Hipol; and The Polygon Gallery Assistant Curator Serena Steel.

Chester Fields 2025: Shadow Play is on view until June 29. View all of the Chester Fields 2025 finalists here.

Banner Image L-R: Polygon Curator Elliott Ramsey, Chester Fields Curator Jana Ghimire, Athanasios Ross, Kate Macphail, Camellia Fazlali and Polygon Assistant Curator Serena Steel. All photos: Alison Boulier

Athanasios Ross
Handsworth Secondary School, North Vancouver
“Dissonance, Like A Wall”

This image is a scan of a reel of five failed negatives, originally appearing purely black, which were digitally edited to a destructive extent in order to extract as many remaining shards of light as possible. The resulting noise melds them together into a pseudo-panorama that forces the viewer to interact with the photograph as they would in true darkness; to let both their imagination and pattern recognition fill in the blanks to find the subject through the wall of noise. Through this piece I explore one’s own relationship with darkness, creating a reflection of how eyes can both fail us yet reveal an entirely different, uniquely human perception of something so universal as light.

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Camellia Fazlali
Sentinel Secondary School, West Vancouver
“Silent Presence”

This piece explores how light and shadow shape the emotional tone of shared spaces. Captured in a moment of quiet stillness, the image isolates its subjects through pools of shadow, turning a recognisable environment into something distant and introspective. Cool tones and deep shadows create privacy and abstraction; sunlight pours through the windows, creating long silhouettes and greenish hues that make it difficult to distinguish between presence and absence. Through contrast and subdued colour, the work invites viewers to notice what is usually overlooked – the silences, the in-between spaces, and the unseen weight of stillness.

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Kate Macphail
Point Grey Secondary School, Vancouver
“The Lost”

Wandering down the hall, I came across a dark room illuminated by colourless images projected onto a wall. The projections were coming from a large machine looming in the corner. Opposite, rows of shadowy figures faced the display, still and quiet, their gazes directed toward these flashes of light. I could not tell you what it was that held their attention. They seemed to be lost in a different place.

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