Colonial Site

In her book, One Place after Another: Notes on Site Specificity, Miwon Kwon discusses artists who engage in site-specific works. Crucially, she says that site should not be seen only as location. She writes: "And in projects by artists such as Lothar Baumgarten, Renee Green, Jimmie Durham, and Fred Wilson, the legacies of colonialism, slavery, racism, and the ethnographic tradition as they impact on identity politics has emerged as an important "site" of artistic investigation" (p93). "In this way different cultural debates, a theoretical concept, a social issue, a political problem, an institutional framework (not necessarily an art institution), a community or seasonal event, a historical condition, even particular formations of desire, are now deemed to function as sites" (p93).

In their statement, the curators say: LandMarks: Art + Places + Perspectives is a network of collaborative, contemporary art projects across Parks Canada places during the 150th year of Canadian Confederation. 2017 marks an occasion to reflect on a much older land, and to address our relationship with nature in the face of present-day environmental and climatic crises, the legacies of colonialism, and the complex relationship between nationhood and cultural identity. Using art as a catalyst for discourse and social change, LandMarks looks forward, and provides an opportunity to imagine, to speculate, and to invent our futures through the eyes of artists, art students, communities, and through the spirit of the land.

This short individual assignment is to identify a colonial site on your usual way to work or school. This colonial site can manifest in different ways, it can be a space, a monument, a graphic, and an image.

Colonial sites can be:

  • Celebrate colonial history
  • Memorialize histories without a context
  • Show Settlers myth
  • Heroicize the exploration and settling of Canada
  • Obscure Indigenous histories

    • Make a photograph of the site you identified and do a 3-minute research presentation in class. Explain in your presentation why you think this site is a colonial site. After presentation you will hand in one page text about you findings and research. Presentation in class at the fieldhouse in Stanley Park is on February 6th when visiting instant coffee.

    Emily Marston, British Columbia Sugar Refinery, also known today as Rogers Sugar Phoebe Huang, Twenty Dollar bill (CAD) with portrait of Queen Elizabeth Fabio Coelho de Miranda, Simon Fraser University Jacky Lo, Waterfront Station (CPR) Jessica Chu, Gentri-Fried Rice by IHeart June Yeo, New Mitzie's Diner Oscar Alfonso, Can P23.1 - [Exterior of the Canadian National Railway station on Main Street] c. 1932 Lori Lai, The Sappers Were Here Elly Habibullah, Main Entrance of UBC Library ByeongSung Lee, Japanese Interment camp in Slocan, BC 2007 / 1945 (archival) ByeongSung Lee, Japanese Interment camp in Slocan, BC 2007 / 1945 (archival) Rachelle Tjahyana, Abandoned House Across from Thompson Community Centre