CLEONet has created this online version of a travelling photo exhibit, which is made up of 26 black and white portraits of injured workers and survivors from all regions of Ontario. The photographer, Judy Kondrat, is a community legal worker at Industrial Accident Victims' Group of Ontario (IAVGO).

The idea for the exhibit came from hearing injured workers and their families tell of the many different ways in which their lives were forever changed by a workplace accident or disease. The photographs, taken in 2002 and 2003, show a reality of loss, a reality articulated by the injured workers Judy sees in her day-to-day work at IAVGO. They are a tribute to the tenacity and courage of the people who struggle with these losses and are an attempt to show the toll that such a struggle exacts.

It is hoped that at least one person who sees these photographs and reads about the workers will be moved to think about injured workers in a different light. If only one person joins the lobby to make workers' compensation laws better for workers, or refuses to do a job that endangers his or her life, then this collection of photographs will have done its job.

To see the full-size versions of the photographs and read the captions, click on the images on the left.

To read the complete introduction to the travelling exhibit, click here to open it as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. (2 pages, 15KB)