Maximum Yield Cannabis USA August / September 2017 | Page 73

IST H TO Y-BA AN Soiferman adds Tweed’s an- nouncement of the residency took the cannabis industry by surprise. “It came out of left field,” he says. “Tweed has prided itself on being a company of firsts. It excited them to try something that’s unorthodox and make people think in a dif- ferent way about cannabis.” In the first 10 months on the job, Soiferman travelled to more than 15 communities around the world to document their cannabis con- nection, including Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Denver, Colo- rado, and Kingston, Jamaica. “I will have managed to get to three of the world’s cannabis meccas dur- ing this residency,” Soiferman says. When working out the details of the new role at Tweed, Soifer- man says the company ensured his work wouldn’t be restricted to solely documenting cannabis. “As much as I love taking photos of hemp fields, medical marijuana plants, trichomes, and buds, my interests in photography are pretty broad,” he says. “In Jamaica, I was photographing ganja, but also photo- graphing people on the streets, and fruits and vegetables at the markets. My camera is there to capture it all.” Using the images captured during his residency, Soiferman has released two short films; The Walls of Montreal, a collection of 1,500 photographs of murals in the city, and Ez in Res, a collection of his favorite images produced during the residency. myhydrolife.com “My hope is viewers get a thrill watching it. I hope they travel vicariously with me along this journey,” he says. While the position was originally created as a one-year contract, Soiferman and Tweed were, at the time of this writing, discussing extending the residency beyond its July end date. They are also examining the creation of other artistic projects within the company. “It’s going to be something we do on an ongoing basis,” Sinclair says. While Soiferman sees his posi- tion at Tweed as a once-in-a-career opportunity, he hopes his work will inspire other artists to seek residency positions of their own. “Not just at cannabis companies, but all types of companies,” he says. “Nowadays, there’s not too much of it going on in the corpo- rate world. To see Tweed push forward on this front sets a good example to other companies.” To see more of Soiferman’s work, visit ezrasoiferman.com/ez-in- res. His Walls of Montreal work can be found on YouTube. William Tremblay is an award- winning writer and photojournalist based in Toronto, Ontario. His work has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers across Canada, covering a wide range of topics from restaurants to politics to coroner’s inquests. Outside of the newsroom, he is an avid traveller, wood worker, and cannabis enthusiast. grow. heal. learn. enjoy. 71