Internship & Volunteering

Welcome to this special page. My name is Vincent Marsolais. Four years ago, I began this project called Hintology. As I firmly embarked on my abstract photography journey, I began to wonder if the artistic path I had borrowed was shared by other likeminded photographers. What began as a solo inquiry to explore the various philosophies behind this art form soon brought other members along this journey. 

Our first interviewee, Paul Rowland, began conducting his very own interviews from Tokyo, and soon Charles David Corbin from Colorado and Laura Galinier from Corsica tagged along. We had two relatively active years during which we released over 30 interviews and several other forms of content, including themed curation, monthly curations, vox pops and various other kinds of features and challenges involving our active community on Instagram.

However, when the world returned to its post-pandemic state of business-as-usual, we all found ourselves with less time to get involved — especially myself. After half a dozen years living and working abroad, the situation had forced to move out of China and back into my homeland of Canada, where I now still reside. I was extremely grateful that the team kept the project afloat until I could find more stability here.

We’ve reached 2024 and I now realize that as an unassuming entrepreneur, I’ve left myself standing on the edge of a burn-out in my attempts to carry numerous projects all at once — often mostly by myself — while simultaneously trying to provide for my family. Last year, when the Hintology magazine was launched in its printed form, I found great motivation in bringing to life the very thing I had envisioned and promised from the start: a full-blown book that attempts to tell the story of our creative community, a combination of our talents reunited in an opus in which each of our voice gets to complement one another, where the commonality of our vision is freely expressed without compromise.

And this ambition still invigorates me: I am firm in my intent to release one book every year. That being said, I must also have realistic expectations towards my own limited capacity as a mere human. I carried the entire production of the first issue on my own, including all its financial, logistical and other technical aspects, from the very first draft to its final delivery, with all the blunders of a first-timer that this involves. And despite the immense pride I feel for the end result and what it represents, it has unfortunately left me unable to readily attend to the very community I was seeking to elevate through social media. In short, it feels to me like this gain shouldn’t come at such a loss.

I believe Hintology is in a better place than it’s ever been to bring people together, which is why I am now reaching out to our community, to you. As you might have observed, the open call for the second Hintology book has been launched on June 1st. In the spirit of building up a more resilient and active sense of community around this project, I’d like to invite any talented individual who feels the same passion as I do for this medium to contribute to this project — any help that comes from the heart truly is welcome. 

And if there is a skillset you’d like to foster, but haven’t had the opportunity to do so, I’d be glad to guide you with the experience I’ve gathered in this environment. Whether it be in keeping our various channels of interaction active, helping out with graphic design, conducting new interviews, translating our content, curating the artworks from our community… if you have a genuine interest and wish to learn, then we can find you a place. 

To give you the larger picture of our ambition, our first plan is to host all of our content on a unified website that includes an official directory of Hintology members; we also wish to reach audiences in other languages and to organize community events around the world (probably in Montreal first). We have other publications planned besides the yearly Hintology issues, and which involves aggregating our previous online content.

Ultimately, if like me you recognize the boundless potential of abstract photography to carry us throughout the timeless stories of our world, then I’d be honoured that you join our team on this odyssey to bring more eyes towards the unseen, the unseeable and the unforeseen.

Let us all hint along where words fall short.

Let us build something worth our while.