Beginning with a chance encounter, Tim Smith has been documenting and building relationships with Hutterite communities in North America over the past fifteen years. An Anabaptist group whose roots trace back to Tyrol, Austria in the wake of the 16th century Radical Reformation, Hutterites live communally on colonies throughout western Canada and the north-western United States. Their culture continues to be preserved through deliberate separation from mainstream society and economic self- sufficiency.
The Hutterites are currently in the midst of one of the most successful periods of their approximately 500 year history. Facing no overt threats from the outside world they have prospered and their population has grown to approximately 50,000. Members are provided for throughout their entire lives and on the whole experience less of the loneliness and isolation prevalent in the modern world. The importance given to engagement in family life, social life and spirituality, and the defined purpose for their lives means Hutterite communities meet many of the requirements to be considered Blue Zones; areas where health, happiness and life expectancy rates are higher than average.
However, this period of peace has its challenges as well. There are concerns amongst colony leaders that too much prosperity is eating away at the fabric of their society and too much contact with the outside world is watering down their culture. Each colony must decide how rigidly they cling to their traditions versus how much they adapt to the increasingly connected outside world. Conformity to the larger group is unofficially policed by the group as a whole. The Minister is burdened with ensuring the colony stays on a path to godliness rather than worldliness. As Hutterite author Paul S. Gross wrote “We cannot please the world and God at the same time ... Either we take this world with all it offers, including trouble, mental stress, sorrow, and death at the end; or else we take a better way.” Despite challenges the Hutterites continue to be the most successful model for communal living in modern western history.
Hutterites are often either romanticized or denigrated as simple, backwards, quaint and/or old fashioned. The reality is that their society is very complex. Smith uses photography to document the breadth and complexity of the Hutterite experience as well as to show how colonies navigate the need to respond to the external pressures of the world around them while holding on to key traditions central to their faith.
Smith’s photographs provide a contemporary and nuanced view of the Hutterite colonies – delving into complex decisions at the heart of the everyday. They offer a glimpse into the continuously negotiated sites of Hutterite life. Many of the images focus on the youth culture in the colonies, where expressions of rebellion, respect for tradition, and maintenance of strict gender roles all create a sense of dual resistance – at once against the pressures of the outside world and against tradition. Having devoted fifteen years to this ongoing documentation, Smith’s understanding of the Hutterite communities creates a possibility of showing their complexity in ways that are responsive to how they wish to be seen.
Tim Smith is a photojournalist and documentary photographer from Brandon, Manitoba. His work explores the connection between the people that inhabit the prairies and the landscape around them. For the past fifteen years he has documented the Hutterites, insular anabaptist Christians who live communally on colonies dotting western Canada and the northwestern United States. The project aims to dispel myths and stereotypes about their complex community and show the breadth of their society. It also provides a document of how colonies are navigating changes to their lifestyle while holding on to key traditions. This work is the broadest and most extensive visual documentations of the Hutterites ever produced and has been published in newspapers and magazines worldwide as well as exhibited in Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Australia and the United States.
Selected recent keynote events include exhibiting as the 2022 Donggang Photo Festival Artist of the Year in Korea, speaking and exhibiting at the 2023 Xposure International Photo Festival in the UAE and speaking at the 2023 Canadian Association of Journalists conference in Vancouver. This year Smith's work will be featured in Wittenberg, Germany as part of the LutherMuseen's programming for the 500-year- anniversary of the birth of Anabaptism. Smith also has upcoming exhibitions in the USA, England, Romania and Canada. Portions of his work from his prairie and Hutterite projects are part of private and public collections including Duke University's Archive of Documentary Arts collection, the Province of Manitoba's art collection, the city of Medicine Hat's art collection and the permanent display at the Mœzeum hab‡nov v Soboti_ti in Slovakia.
In addition to long-term documentary work Smith is a passionate speaker on topics relating to slow journalism, entering and navigating the world of exhibiting, photographing sensitive communities or subjects, mental health in journalism and the heartbreak and joy of being invited into people's lives. Smith's work has garnered several awards including three National Newspaper Awards and a Judges Special Recognition in the prestigious Pictures of the Year International (POYI) Community Awareness Award. He continues to work on stories from the prairies and beyond.