"suzy the crackhead" Photograph

Michael Dent has been a brash and bristling voice in popular culture since the late 1970s.
He got his start at Toronto's and Canada's first punk club, the Crash 'N Burn, as the
drummer for The Dents, in 1977.
Following that, he booked bands for the culturally iconic, but long-gone, Beverley
Tavern from 1985 to 1987, giving such bands as Cowboy Junkies their first gigs.
As a sound tech, he went on to work with such musical innovators as Nash the Slash and
Art Bergmann.
ln 1992,Dent returned to the stage as a spoken word artist, a forum he continues to use to
this day to relentlessly question his own, and our culture's, shadow sides.
That same year, intrigued by the visiting industrial circus Archaos, Dent found his way
into the tutelage of the company's firebreathing master Pascalito Vuonet, and performed
for them under the big top.
Soon after, he showcased these firebreathing skills in a succession of music videos, all
made in 1993, for the bands The Headstones (1/'s All Over), directed by Bruce
MacDonald; 13 Engines (Smoke and Ashes), directed by Floria Sigismondi; and for
Death and Horror Incorporated (New Vision), directed by D.H.I.
During this prolific period, Dent explored the visual arts, using collage, found objects and
sheet metal as media. His debut as an exhibiting artist was at Toronto's now defunct Idee
Gallery in 1993 as part of a group show. One of his sheet metal pieces from that time still
hangs behind the bar in the Bovine Sex Club today.
A disastrous love affair and the suicide of his brother were Dent's impetus to journey
down the darkest alleys of our culture as a Vancouver-based heroin addict between 1994
and 1998. Some of these experiences are chronicled in his books of poetry, Die With Me
and Pearls Before Swine. Both were self-published shortly before he left for the west
coast. His poems have also been published in numerous magazines both here and in
Europe.
Upon emerging from this underworld, Dent met multimedia artist Karl Spreitz, who lent
him his first camera in Victoria, and became his photo mentor. Dent began producing
short videos and exploring photography as a means to question his experience and to
document the fragility, pathos, and moments of stubborn survival and transcendence in
our world. In2009, Dent's was one of 60 photos chosen from2067 submissions to
Toronto's Contact Photography Festival competition.