Ernest Boateng’s photographic exhibit Pop Your Collar isn’t preachy or overtly political. It nevertheless exudes a power that operates on multiple registers. Boateng’s photography finds and reveals that pride-in-work that our beleaguered provincial working class needs so much. It also operates at a more subtle level, provoking reflections on what work even means in this day and age. 

The exhibit proceeds from surface images to interior depth. It opens with photographs of worksites: a paper mill, a boat in the harbour, and others. These are worksites as most of us (who do not work in them) see them in our daily lives: distant evidence of an economy in operation, or something being produced. We see sites like this everyday, we walk past them, but rarely do we go deeper and strive to understand the lives of those on the inside, doing the work. Boateng goes there. Gradually, slowly, stripping away layers to reveal the complexity of working class life. The next set of photographs peers closer at work-in-progress, hinting at the whimsy with which we fill our toiling hours. First there is a welding mask hanging on a hook: time to don the tools of the trade and start the day. But the faded, worn mask is personalized with playful cartoon stickers, a reminder that however soulless and dehumanizing the task, workers will find ways to impose their own spirit and identity upon it. In the adjacent photograph a seated worker is surrounded by chickens, arms full of eggs, feeding them with a bemused grin on his face. He is without a doubt exploited by low pay and precarious working conditions, but to endure these tasks we find the whimsy in the moment, the gentle spaces that bring joy to the job. Boateng captures the moments that matter, the spaces we claim as our own. Next up, a worker at pause on an assembly line evokes a similar feeling. 

Pop Your Collar, exhibition photo by Kailey Ikkusek-Rogers.

Pop Your Collar weaves together images of workers on the job as well as at home, and this is important. Our working worlds are not limited to the job site. Wherever we go, we carry the imprint of our jobs upon us. The day’s toil shapes our attitude when we get home at the end of the day; drives our diversions (even if they consist of nothing more than sitting in a daze on the sofa); and our relationships with others outside the workplace.  Depictions of workers ought to incorporate the fullness of their lives, and Boateng’s work does so. Because if they don’t, well that’s just what the system wants, isn’t it? A neat division of labour, a fantasy land where our experiences at work don’t affect our lives at home, and vice versa too. But the reality is much more complex. 

In the next photo (we’re proceeding in a clockwise direction) a man sits in an armchair, gripping the handles, staring at a table laden with paper. Bills? Taxes? Other domestic paperwork? His face conveys that irreconcilable mixture of feeling that pours through us at these moments. There’s rejection of the task ahead—aren’t our day jobs enough? Why must we work more when we get home? But he’s also busy ignoring the task: a dreamy smile plays over his face; imagination in action, conjuring unknown dreams and aspirations. 

Below this photograph lies another: a perfectly set table, empty and alone. Where are the people who ought to be sitting around it, talking, laughing, and eating? Have they been delayed on the job? Have they returned home so tired they went straight to bed? Gone bar-hopping? The outcome is the same: an empty home, a dinner uneaten. How often is the important joy of a collective meal sacrificed to the demands of exhaustion, overtime, clashing schedules?

Along the next wall, the interweaving of work and home continues. A leather work jacket hanging on a hook provides the end-of-day alternative to the welding mask: the day’s over, the labourer returns home. Another photo reveals someone in the bath, a glass of wine balanced on the tub’s edge. Adjacent to it, a sink full of dirty dishes. There is power in making these choices, in rejecting the chores we have no time for and seizing joy and leisure instead. But choices come with a price.

There are more photos of a worker depicted earlier, holding a flamethrower, proudly smug look on their face. From the chickens to the welders, Boateng’s photos capture the power of workers confident and focused in their tasks. No need for redundant, paper-pushing bosses here; a subtle working-class power infuses these pieces. The theme continues in the next photo: burning barrels at night, cleverly and subtly evocative of fire barrels, ubiquitous presence on labour union strike picket lines. How to demonstrate worker power without saying you’re demonstrating worker power? Burning barrels, fire, workers lighting up the dark. 

The exhibit is rounded out with a centrepiece comprised of an empty worksuit sitting in a chair, staring at a screen placed on a table draped with a provincial flag. The screen cycles through more of Boateng’s photography. 

Gazing at the pieces of industrial hardware placed in the corners of the gallery space; at the photographs of industrial worksites; and at the provincial flag at the centre of it all (upholding a screen full of images), we might discern another message here, of how the province itself is a work in progress. It too is a work comprised of images and screens and carefully crafted exteriors; at the heart of which sit us working folks, arrayed in all our contradictions, complexities, struggles and toil and rest. 

The photographs themselves are beautifully crafted and a testament to Boateng’s visual acumen. An exhibit like this is likely to speak to each of us differently: see it while you can so you can hear what it has to say to you. 

Pop Your Collar ran from August 7 – September 19, 2026 at the Rogue Gallery in Eastern Edge Gallery. 

Rhea Rollmann is an award-winning journalist, writer and audio producer based in St. John’s, NL, and is the author of A Queer History of Newfoundland (Engen Books, 2023).