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NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

For more media information, interviews or images, please contact:
Anne Marie Todaro, Publicist, 416.586.5558; e-mail: amtodaro@rom.on.ca

House Calls with my Camera:

Social Documentary Portraits by Dr. Mark
Nowaczynski
Powerful photos of seniors on display at the ROM
(Toronto, Ontario – April 28, 2010) The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)
presents House Calls with my Camera, a poignant series of photo essays
capturing the lives of the patients of Toronto physician Dr. Mark
Nowaczynski. The 36 powerful photos taken by Dr. Nowacyznski, many of
which are on display for the first time, document the hidden world of his
house-bound patients, revealing the startling lack of medical and supportive
home care services of this vulnerable population. House Calls with my
Camera will be on display on Level 2 in the Hilary and Galen Weston Wing
from May 15 to October 11, 2010.
Vera R., age 91, March 2002

“Dr. Mark Nowaczynski’s work follows a long line of photo documentarians – individuals gifted with
the ability to wed their exceptional artistic talent with strong social convictions. The ROM is
delighted to display the work of Dr. Nowaczynski, offering visitors the opportunity to explore the
beauty of his stirring photography, while considering the harsh realities of our aging population,” said
William Thorsell, ROM Director and CEO.

“If we didn’t go to these individuals, they wouldn’t get any health care because they can’t come to
us. They would fall through the cracks. These are hidden worlds - people who cease to exist, who
have no voice. One day this will be you and I. You are not looking at an exotic species in another
world – you are looking at your future,” said Dr. Mark Nowaczynski.

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April 26, 2010
 About the Exhibition
House Calls with my Camera features 36 black and white photographs taken by Dr. Nowaczynski of his
patients, with a focus on four at-risk individuals. The exhibition gives the viewer insight not only into seniors’
quality of life and the subjects’ personal stories, but an appreciation of the transformative power of
photography.

Taken in black and white using a 4x5 large format camera, each photograph is printed traditionally on silver
gelatin fibre-based paper from high-quality negatives. The resulting images convey vulnerability, but also a
quiet strength and courage, as each struggle to live the rest of their lives with dignity.

The subject of a Gemini Award winning National Film Board of Canada documentary, House Calls, Dr.
Nowaczynski’s photographs have raised awareness about the many complex issues related to aging. In 2009
the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care announced the funding of the House Calls team through the
Aging at Home Strategy. The House Calls team is an interdisciplinary community-based group led by Dr.
Nowaczynski that assists aging in place and improves the quality of life of seniors by providing on-going
integrated home-based care.

Visitors will experience a photographic journey into the lives of four patients captured by the lens of Dr.
Nowaczynski during his House Calls visits:

John L.
John L., age 79, was living like a hermit, isolated and alone and his apartment
showed evidence of hoarding. He was a Korean War veteran with flashbacks,
suffering from post-traumatic stress, dementia, and heart disease.

The House Calls team assessed, treated, and monitored his complex medical and
social challenges. They linked him to community supports, ensured his rent was
paid, and sent in Meals on Wheels. A personal support worker helped him take
medications and an ‘extreme clean’ service was sent in to clean his apartment. John
had a stroke and died in September 2009 at age 81. He was buried next to the Mr. John L., age 80, September 2008

Korean War National Memorial outside Toronto.

Barbara B.
Barbara B., age 82, grew up four houses away from her future husband, Ross, and they married in their early
20s. They raised a family and lived on that same street until age 80, when Ross had to move to a nursing
home after his leg was amputated in 2008.

Hating their separation, and now both needing wheelchairs, the couple moved to their son’s home where
they received excellent home care support. Facing further medical and physical difficulties, and after
desperately trying to find them a new family doctor willing to make home visits, a social worker referred

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April 26, 2010
 them to House Calls in November 2008, and they greatly benefitted from
ongoing interdisciplinary care at home.

Ross died in August 2009 from complications of diabetes and heart disease. In a
portrait taken on a Sunday morning six weeks after his death, you see Barbara
sick with pneumonia and congestive heart failure. She was sitting in Ross’s chair.
Barbara B., age 82, October 2009

Joseph L.
Joseph L., age 75, fell on the street one day, and a visit to a hospital emergency
department triggered his referral to House Calls in 2009. The community occupational
therapist who first visited Joseph at home noted that he had not seen his family doctor
in several years, had no friends or supports and had lost touch with his family in the
1970s. Never having attended school, Joseph is illiterate. Neglected and malnourished
when first treated, he regained his strength with daily lunches from Meals on Wheels.

In July 2009 Joseph received an eviction notice from his landlord. He was vulnerable
Joseph L, 75, October 2009
and at high risk of homelessness, but a corrective plan was quickly enacted by the
House Calls social worker. Eviction was averted, although his rent was increased. Joseph has now applied for
subsidized senior’s housing, but the wait for a bachelor apartment is over five years.

Joyce A.
In 2006 a neighbour noticed that Joyce A., age 79, was not managing well due to
memory problems and called a community support agency for help. Joyce had several
untreated medical conditions, was not eating properly, and had stopped paying her
bills. She attended an Adult Day Program where she benefited from social and
recreational stimulation, and regular meals.

Increasingly vulnerable and at risk, Joyce moved in June 2007 to supportive-housing

Mrs. Joyce A., age 80, July 2007
geared to cognitively impaired seniors. Her dementia progressed, and in May 2009
Joyce was admitted to a nursing home. In one final portrait she stared blankly ahead with barely a flicker of
recognition. Joyce died that September at age 82.

About Dr. Mark Nowaczynski and the House Calls team:

Dr. Nowaczynski was born in Montreal in 1959 and was educated in Quebec, Singapore, Kinston (B.Sc.),
Vancouver (Ph.D., M.D.) and Toronto (C.C.F.P.), where he now lives with his wife and two children. His
life-long passion for documentary photography emerged when he was 16 years old. He won a scholarship to
study in Singapore and was inspired to explore and photograph his surroundings in his free time.

Dr. Nowaczynski began practicing family medicine in 1992 when he noticed a marked lack of medical and
supportive home care services for seniors. Understanding the need for change, he turned to photography in

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April 26, 2010
 1998 to document the hidden world of his house-bound patients as a means of addressing this significant
social issue and to raise awareness about the needs of this vulnerable population. Many of the 36 images that
will be on display have never been exhibited before.

Government policies in the province of Ontario shifted in the mid 90s and many of Dr. Nowaczynski’s
vulnerable house-bound patients lost their home care services. Feeling unable to fight this and realizing the
opportunity that photography presented as a compelling tool for advocacy and a stimulus for social change, in
1998 Dr. Nowaczysnki began to document his patients’ hidden world.

Dr. Mark Nowaczynski is the Clinical Director of House Calls: Interdisciplinary mobile team serving frail seniors.
Based in a not-for-profit community support agency, this physician-led team includes a Social Worker,
Occupational Therapist, and Nurse Practitioner, who provide ongoing home-based care to frail, vulnerable
and marginalized seniors. House Calls began as a pilot project in 2007, and received full funding in 2009 from
the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care through the Government of Ontario’s Aging at Home Strategy.
The House Calls team promotes aging in place and improves the health and quality of life of seniors by
providing ongoing integrated home-based care.

Dr. Nowaczynski closed his office practice in 2007 an now makes house calls full time.

Other Information
House Calls with my Camera coincides with the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival that runs from
May 1 to 31, 2010. The festival’s theme this year is ‘Pervasive Influence’, which explores the social and
political consequences of the medium of photography, in a world devoted to the image.

The exhibition was curated by Kelvin Browne, the ROM’s Vice President, Marketing and Major
Exhibitions, the panel text was written by Richard Lahey, Interpretive Planner at the ROM, and the exhibit
design was created by Emilio Genovese, Exhibit Designer, ROM.

Admission to House Calls with my Camera is included with general Museum admission: Adults: $22; Students
and Seniors with ID: $19; Children (4 to 14 years) $15; Children 3 and under are free. Half Price Friday
Nights, presented by Sun Life Financial, take place from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. To book a group of ten or
more, and for more information on private guided tours or group menus, please call ROM Group Sales at
416.586.5889 or email groupsales@rom.on.caFor more information to register, please visit www.rom.on.ca,
or call ROM Programs at 416.586.5797.
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The Royal Ontario Museum is an agency of the Government of Ontario. Opened in 1914, Canada’s largest museum of
natural history and world cultures has six million objects in its collections and galleries showcasing art, archaeology and
natural science. The theme of enhancing access to the ROM’s collections, spaces, and content has inspired the ROM’s
new fundraising priorities for 2010 in the areas of Accessibility, Digital Content, Education, Research & Collections,
Programming & Exhibits and Gallery Development. For 24-hour information in English and French, please call
416.586.8000 or visit the ROM’s web site at www.rom.on.ca. Tickets to the ROM are available online at
www.rom.on.ca.

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April 26, 2010
 Upcoming Exhibitions:
June 26, 2010 The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army
July 24, 2010 From the Soul: Caribana Art Exhibit

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April 26, 2010