Ottawa: Symbolic Nation and the City

Heather LeRoux

OTTAWA: SYMBOLIC NATION AND THE CITY

CAPSTONE SEMINAR SERIES (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2014.

Managing Editor

Dr. Anne Trépanier

Desktop publishing

Shermeen Nizami

Proofreading and final edit

Emma Gooch and Ryan Lux

Editorial Board

Dr. Daniel MacFarlane, Amanda Murphy, Sarah Spear, Ryan Lux, Greer, Jessica Helps, Martha Attridge Bufton, Paula Chinkiwsky, Sarah Baker, Heather Leroux, Victoria Ellis, Stephanie Elliot, Emma Gooch, Cassandra Joyce, Brittany Collier, Tiffany Douglas, Anne Trépanier.

Guest Editor

Dr. Daniel MacFarlane

Special thanks

Patrick Lyons and Andrew Barrett

Copyright Notice

© Heather LeRoux, April 2014

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy, or transmission of this publication, or part thereof in excess of one paragraph (other than as a PDF file at the discretion of School of Canadian Studies at Carleton University) may be made without the written permission of the author. To quote this article refer to: ― Heather LeRoux, Ottawa: Symbolic Nation and the City, Capstone Seminar Series, (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, number 1, Spring 2014, page number and date of accession to this website: http://capstoneseminarseries.wordpress.com

2 HEATHER LEROUX

Ottawa: Symbolic Nation and the City

Heather LeRoux

ABSTRACT

Ottawa as a national capital is constantly negotiating its national and local civic identity. Monuments and public art play a role in articulating these identities within the public sphere and are further narrated by the personal use of these spaces by local citizens. This paper will show that although there is a difference between monuments and public art terms of intention and purpose, monuments and public art as they exist within the public sphere are actually one in the same, as they exist as forms which we experience at a local level and can contribute to a multilayered national, local and personal identity.

KEYWORDS

Ottawa, national, local, identity, monument, art

CAPSTONE SEMINAR SERIES (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2014.

3 OTTAWA: SYMBOLIC NATION AND THE CITY

Ottawa is a classic Canadian evocation of the river: not as a border, but as a hinge, a highway, a joining.

John Ralston Saul1

The idea of Ottawa as a “joining” suggested in the opening quote by John Ralston Saul can be seen as the articulation of Ottawa as the meeting place of two rivers, or two provinces in a physical sense, but also as the meeting place of two forms of collective identity – the national and the local. As a capital city, Ottawa promotes a national identity through the use of symbolic space and the monumentalization of historic moments and people. Within this context, the urban experience of local people is altered in their everyday use of these spaces. How does the promotion of a national identity within the capital override the local? In what ways are the lives of local residents altered within the framework of a capital city? This paper will aim to examine how monument and space simultaneously facilitate both a national and local identity within the national capital region.

So, what is a monument? Are monuments only those which are created and narrated by official bodies, or can they be created and re-interpreted at a local or personal level? For the Department of Canadian Heritage, monuments and public art are categorized distinctly from one another. While the difference between monuments and public art is clear in terms of intention and purpose, I would argue that monuments and public art as they exist within the public sphere are actually one in the same, as they both exist as forms which we experience at a local level. I will demonstrate this idea through the discussion of Ottawa as a national capital, Ottawa

1 John Ralston Saul, in Melissa K. Rombout, Ottawa: on display. Ottawa: Ottawa Art Gallery, 2002.

4 HEATHER LEROUX as a local city, the interplay of national and civic identities in the physical space and the roles of monuments and public art in this interplay of identities.

The selection of Ottawa as the national capital of was an event which forever shifted Ottawa’s civic identity. From 1867 onward, the former city of became the centre of government, shifting the collective identity of those who lived there. It has been noted that former Prime Minister Mackenzie King once stated that Ottawa was, “small and like that of a provincial town, not interesting, but tiresome. Not a pretty place save about the Parliament buildings” (Taylor 142). Similar sentiments about Ottawa have repeated since, as the city is often regarded as mundane, and lacking its own identity. While Ottawa’s local identity may be overshadowed by its national one, the common assertion that it has no strong local identity can and should be challenged. One way to look at this topic is through Ottawa’s built form. The scope of this paper will address Ottawa as it is represented through both national monuments and public art at the local level.

In the downtown core, Ottawa is adorned with many monuments and public art projects that narrate our public spaces. Monuments stand as a permanent reminder for a specific person, event or moment and all have importance to the political and historical Canadian narrative. In the context of Ottawa, the monuments which dominate the public sphere aim to represent national themes and people of national significance although they may not always be successful. These monumental forms exhibit national overarching themes that are not always inclusive and moments in time reflective of certain political and often militaristic moments of history. An examination of this topic requires discussion of work already done in this

CAPSTONE SEMINAR SERIES (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2014.

5 OTTAWA: SYMBOLIC NATION AND THE CITY field by Brian Osborne, most notably in his article “Landscapes, memory, monuments, and commemoration: putting identity in its Place,” in which he discusses the evolution of identity and place-making through a theoretical analysis of cultural and memory texts in relation to the construction of Canadian national identity in the built form. According to Osborne;

In the production of these collective memories, national history is rendered as a mythic narrative acted out on, bounded by, and bounded with, particular places. To this end, history, memory, and identity are constantly being re- negotiated to cultivate a people's identification with the nationalizing-state through foundation myths, heroic narratives, the personification of putative national qualities, and the identification with particular places (46).

Other than at , no place in the nation’s capital exhibits these national ideas more than in Confederation Square, an area defined by the intersection of Wellington, Elgin and Rideau streets and bridging the . Designated as a National Historic Site in 1984, and inscribed on the Canadian Register in 2009, it is here that you will find the site of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the National War Memorial. In addition to being the site of these important monuments of war, it is also visually significant in the capital as it is bordered by buildings that are of national and local importance, such as the National Arts Centre, Chateau Laurier, the Central Chambers, the Central Post Office and the of Parliament. According to the Statement of Significance, Confederation Square’s importance and value “resides in its role as a national ceremonial site and in its physical manifestation of a city’s beautiful-inspired public space as illustrated by its location in the heart of Ottawa” (Parks Canada).

In their article, “Constructing National Identity in the Nation’s Capital,” Brian S. Osborne and David L.A. Gordon have argued that it is the combination of the National War Memorial as a symbolic object and Confederation Square as public

6 HEATHER LEROUX space which is most significant in representing an idea of our national identity in this urban setting (637). Confederation Square, with its triangular formation acting as a bridge, fuses where the downtown core meets Centretown and the Byward Market. These areas are all important to Ottawa’s local identity as these communities are central to the common understanding of the city, and they all converge at this one central point, just east of Parliament Hill.

In 2006 an addition was made to the northeast corner of Confederation Square in the form of the Valiants Memorial, which is comprised of nine busts and five statues of men and women who were significant in Canada’s military history.2 The statues featured in the memorial commemorate: Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville, Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), Charles-Michel de Salaberry, Laura Secord and General Sir . The nine busts depicted are: Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray, Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski, , Corporal Joseph Kaeble, Louis de Buade, John Butler, Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, Georgina Pope, and Captain John Wallace Thomas. Each of these figures are meant to represent significant moments and groups who were involved in military conflict throughout Canada’s past, but only represent a small geographic part of Canada’s population. Designed by artists Marlene Hilton Moore and John McEwan, the Valiants Memorial was revealed in November of 2006 with the inscription: Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo (No day shall ever erase you from the memory of time) a phrase taken from The Aeneid by Virgil (Canadian Heritage, The Valiants Memorial).

2 The understanding of Canada as represented in the figures featured at the Valiants Memorial is very broad, as they represent historic people and events from before confederation. CAPSTONE SEMINAR SERIES (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2014.

7 OTTAWA: SYMBOLIC NATION AND THE CITY

In Melissa Rombout’s Ottawa: on Display, a text written in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at the Ottawa Art Gallery in 2000, Rombout cites Canadian architect and writer Witold Rybczynski who stated in City Life: Urban Experiences in a New World that “every great city has a spot that tells you are here” (5). For Rombout, the articulation of “here” within the context of Ottawa, is at this point in Confederation Square where the city centers, or as she artfully writes, the “liminal boundary between two lungs of a city” (26). It is also worth noting that Confederation Square is historically where Upper Town and Lower Town met, demonstrating the historical separation between the national and local, as the area around Parliament Hill was clearly dedicated to matters of national importance (as it is now) and the area to the East was the centre of local life. Also discussed in Rombout’s analysis of Ottawa as a national capital is an idea, which was brought forward by cultural theorist Anthony D. King who noted that:

The contemporary role of the national capital as the unifying ground of ideology, a central core that binds the contesting forces from the periphery. Here, the capital is both the real and imagined source if moral and technical order for the nation, where the narratives of culture and commerce are performed through the displays of national institutions (Rombout, 30). King’s assertion that narratives of culture are performed through our national institutions can also be extended to our understanding of our national monuments. Monuments contribute to our understanding of our history and collective national past, but are also markers of our everyday lived experience within the city.

Public art is another way in which identity is articulated within the public sphere. Although public art projects do not serve the same goals in representation or historicization that monuments do, they exist in the same spaces and are experienced by citizens in the same way through circulation patterns and movement around them.

8 HEATHER LEROUX

As Hilde Hein has elsewhere discussed, public art has evolved to become more “communitarian,” as onlookers have become active participants in the constitution of the work, rather than passively experiencing it. Meaning in public art is then derived from the public’s participation in and memory of the work of art (3).

Both monuments and public art contribute to our sense of place within Ottawa, both nationally and locally. ‘Sense of place’ as a concept has been discussed by authors such as Edward Relph, Yi-Fu Tuan and Kent C. Ryden. Sense of place, as described by these authors, is much more than just urban landscape or physical space, but rather a sense of place “results gradually and unconsciously from inhabiting a landscape over time, becoming familiar with its physical properties, accruing a history within its confines” (Ryden 38). Therefore place can be understood as a landscape which is tied with memory and the lived experience of those who have occupied the physical space.

Sense of place is bound up with the concept of location, landscape, experience and importantly, memory. As Ryden has also noted, “if we feel that our present selves are inextricably bound to our pasts – that our lives have historical continuity, that we are the products of our past experiences – and if we tie memory to landscape, then in contemplating place we contemplate ourselves” (39). This conception of contemplating identity within a sense of place can extend to our understanding of monuments in the public sphere. As they are in fact a part of our sense of place since they contribute to our lived experience of the city and occur throughout the downtown area of the city, especially near Confederation Square. An interplay of tensions exist within our public spaces as monuments and public art are fixed

CAPSTONE SEMINAR SERIES (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2014.

9 OTTAWA: SYMBOLIC NATION AND THE CITY elements of the lived experience, but are constantly changed and altered by the sense of place which evolves with collective and personal memories of these places. Public art and monuments also evoke Pierre Nora’s concept of “lieux de mémoire,” or sites of memory. Both of these forms, while fixed, engage with and narrate our public urban spaces as we have memories attached to them. As Nora has stated,

Memory is by nature simple and yet specific; collective, plural and yet individual. History, on the other hand belongs to everyone and to no one, whence its claim to universal authority. Memory takes root in the concrete: in space, gesture, image and object; history binds itself to the temporal continuities, and to relations between things. Memory is absolute, while history can only conceive the relative (9). Memory, then, can be understood as more significant than the imposed historical meaning of a monument or public art. The intangible associations, which are ascribed to them on a daily basis through the lived experience of the local people can contribute more to an object or monument than its intended purpose. To return to the example of Confederation Square and the Valiants Memorial, this monument to Canada’s military history has recently taken on new meaning in the public sphere. In January 2014, the busts at the Valiants Memorial went viral online as they were photographed by many passersby as people noticed the busts adorned with knitted scarves with a tag attached indicating to take one to keep warm. On the bitterly cold day, the scarves were snatched up, but not before they had been photographed and posted by multiple people online and shared nationwide. An interesting anecdote, but I believe it speaks to the larger role that monuments play within our everyday experience. The Valiants Memorial, while it has a fixed intention in representing specific historic moments and people, can still be altered with layers of meaning that we in the present day inscribe on them.

The scarves knitted for the Valiants Memorial were also found along as they decorated some of Bruce Garner’s sculptures including Joy on the east

10 HEATHER LEROUX end of the street near Confederation Square. Garner’s work is a staple throughout Ottawa’s downtown core, his sculptures can be found in many locations including Sparks Street, Ottawa’s Arts Court, at the corner of O’Connor and McLeod, and adorning the southern side of Ottawa’s City Hall. The decoration of both national monuments and Garner’s public sculpture suggests a blurring in the meaning of monuments and public art, and that all of these public forms are simply sculptures with various levels of meaning, some national, and some local.

Confederation Square is also constantly activated through ritual, as the Remembrance Day Ceremony takes place there every year. While the ceremony constantly reinforces the historical meanings of the memorial and remembrance, the active participation in the rituals activate it within the present day and is reason to draw people to the space. Confederation Square is also important as it is central to pedestrian pathways in the downtown area, as tourists and local people alike navigate through and around the memorial and square year round. Circulation patterns are important in understanding our space and as the traffic is routed around the National War Memorial, the population is forced to experience it in their daily commutes through the downtown area and circle the large monumental form.

In addition to Confederation Square, the site of Reconciliation, the Peacekeeping Monument is another important public space where a national monument is narrated though our use of public space. Unveiled in 1992 at the intersection of Sussex, Murray, Mackenzie and St. Patrick, the Peacekeeping Monument is dedicated to both living and past peacekeepers. The monument was designed as a collaborative effort between sculptor Jack Harman, urban designer Richard G. Henriquez and landscape

CAPSTONE SEMINAR SERIES (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2014.

11 OTTAWA: SYMBOLIC NATION AND THE CITY architect Cornelia H. Oberlander, as it has multiple elements including three statues of Canadian Peacekeepers and is a monument which can be walked through and experienced from different perspectives (Canadian Heritage, Reconciliation, the Peacekeeping Monument).

As P. Gough has noted in “Invicta Pax’ Monuments, Memorials and Peace: an analysis of the Canadian Peacekeeping Monument,” the Peacekeeping Monument was expected to replicate the “spatial and symbolic” impact of Confederation Square and the National War Memorial, revitalize a new political space, and be a monumental centrepiece for Canada’s foreign policy (222). What is interesting about the Peacekeeping monument is its replication of the circulation pattern of Confederation Square, as traffic in the area is forced to move around it as it is at the intersection of four roads as well as at the foot of the Alexandria Bridge. Additionally, the Peacekeeping Monument stands across from one of Canada’s most important cultural institutions, the National Gallery of Canada, which is home to the massive sculpture, Maman, by Louise Bourgeois and was installed at the front of the building at Sussex and St. Patrick Street in 2005 (National Gallery of Canada).

The relationship between monuments and public art within Ottawa’s public space is demonstrated well in these two examples. Maman and Reconciliation are forced to interact as they occupy the same public square and each are visually impacted by the other, which is an important relationship to consider in the articulation of public art and monuments. Through this interplay of national monument and a work of public art at a monumental scale, as Maman stands over thirty feet high and can be seen from multiple views, there is an interaction of national and local identity within this space. While the argument could be made that both of these works exist within a

12 HEATHER LEROUX national framework as one is a nationally commissioned monument and the other a piece of work owned by a national art institution, I would argue that Maman is actually a better articulation of a localized form of identity as it is a public sculpture which is continually activated by our use of this space and object. Maman, while existing at the front of the National Gallery of Canada is most representative as an articulation of Ottawa is a destination for tourists and residents alike which contributes to our understanding of our collective local identity.

Another national monument which can be discussed in terms of its enactment though public engagement is the monument of the Anishinabe Scout, formerly at the foot of the Samuel de Champlain monument at Nepean Point. This monument has been discussed in recent years as it has been a centre of controversy and has been the subject of much social and political interaction. Originally designed in 1918 by Hamilton McCarthy, the Scout was intended to “recognize the role of First Nations people in the development of Canada” (Canadian Heritage, “Anishinabe Scout”). As documented by Claudette Lauzon in “Monumental Interventions: Jeff Thomas Seizes Commemorative Space,”3 the monument has undergone transformations by way of artistic interaction facilitated by artist Jeff Thomas in his photographic works. By engaging with the monument, Thomas subverts the imposed narrative represented by the monument through active resistance and by applying layers of personal and collective meaning to the object (90).

3 The history of the Samuel de Champlain monument and the relationship to the Anishinabe Scout is much more complex than is articulated here and is broader than the scope of this paper. For a more detailed, in-depth analysis of these monuments, see Claudette Lauzon “Monumental Interventions: Jeff Thomas Seizes Commemorative Space,” in ed. J. Keri Cronin and Kirsty Robertson, Imagining Resistance: Visual Culture and Activism in Canada. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press (2011). Print. CAPSTONE SEMINAR SERIES (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2014.

13 OTTAWA: SYMBOLIC NATION AND THE CITY

According to Lauzon:

Public monuments represent and contribute to the construction of national identity by imposing on public spaces a colossal presence with inculcating narratives rendered timeless by virtue of the material—invariably stone, bronze, or marble—employed to monumentalize a preferred version of national history.” (81) Continual interaction with monuments and public art is one way in which these projected national ideas can be complicated and more localized, and personal narratives can emerge as the dominant theme. The interactive engagement with these monuments such as the interventions by Thomas can become the focus of meaning for an institutionalized monument. The reaction to or against the creation of or removal of monuments can take precedence in the common understanding of monumental forms, as demonstrated by the public discourse surrounding the Scout and Nepean Point since the issue emerged in discussion and criticism of national myths. As part of the 400th anniversary celebrating Champlain’s arrival to Canada, the French Embassy in Ottawa hosted a light show around the Champlain monument in the fall of 2013. As a competing event, many gathered at the site of the Anishinabe Scout, relocated in 1999 in a controversial move to nearby Major’s Hill Park.4 This gathering and counter-event acted as a form of resistance to the national commemoration taking place and further highlights how the interaction and interplay of local and personal narratives can be imposed on a monument to add an additional layer of meaning to the site.

4 This event was documented by the students from the Department of History at Carleton University and more information can be found at the webpage “The Counter Lightshow Party,” Champlain in the Anishinabe Aki, digital repository. http://champlain.graeworks.net/exhibits/show/illuminatingencounter/lightshowparty

14 HEATHER LEROUX

In Ottawa: on display Melissa Rombout also discussed the concept of ritual within a national capital. She argued that Ottawa as a whole is a site for collective ritual as we continue to perpetuate a national identity through our position as the centre of Canadian government and in turn, the perception of our local identity is muted. On identity Rombout states, “we are positioned as spectators of the national stage, not only as moving bodies of the street, but as consumers of maps, prints, printed circles and pamphlets, tourist souvenirs, photographs and films” (25). In this way, the residents of Ottawa are continually confronted with our national identity in the form of printed media while also navigating the physical space of the capital city. She also notes that “the capital is a dynamic event rather than a fixed object. Ottawa as a city and capital is a spatial and ideological public sphere where we both contribute and derive collective identity it can be argued that how we learn to see the city has been shaped and directed in various ways” (23). As citizens of Ottawa, we take on the national identity through how the city is represented at the national scale, while our lived experience of the place is not as explicit. As occupants of the capital, local residents experience these national narratives and institutions more than most Canadians. However the local and personal narratives should not be overshadowed.

As John Ralston Saul has noted, “Ottawa is one of the rare national capitals where you’re still conscious of the place both as a physical presence and an embodiment of history” (Rombout 98). In our understanding of the monuments and built forms which narrate our lived experience of Ottawa as a city, our constant involvement with and action around monuments in the public sphere continue to shape and alter their meanings and influence how a triad of identities, the national, local and personal are negotiated within the same public spaces. CAPSTONE SEMINAR SERIES (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2014.

15 OTTAWA: SYMBOLIC NATION AND THE CITY

Works Cited Anishinabe Scout, Canadian Heritage. , Department of Canadian Heritage. Web. Mon. 31 Mar. 2014. Gordon, David L.A. and Brian S. Osborne. “Constructing national identity in Canada’s capital, 1900-2000: Confederation Square and the National War Memorial.” Journal of Historical Geography. 30 (2004): 618-642. Mon. 10 Feb. 2014. Gough, P. “Invicta Pax’ Monuments, Memorials and Peace: an analysis of the Canadian Peacekeeping Monument.” International Journal of Heritage Studies. 8.3 (2002): 201-223. Mon. 10 Feb. 2014. Hein, Hilde. “What is Public Art?: Time, Place and Meaning,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 54.1 (1996): 1-7. Thurs. 27 Mar. 2014. Lauzon, Claudette. “Monumental Interventions: Jeff Thomas Seizes Commemorative Space,” in ed. J. Keri Cronin and Kirsty Robertson, Imagining Resistance: Visual Culture and Activism in Canada. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press (2011). Print. Maman, Louise Bourgeois, 1999 - Collections. National Gallery of Canada. Web. Tues. 25 Mar. 2014. Nora, Pierre. “Lieux de Memoire,” Representations. 26.1 (1989): 7-24. Mon. 17 Mar. 2014. Osborne, Brian S. “Landscapes, memory, monuments and commemoration: putting identity in its place.” Canadian Ethnic Studies. 33.3 (2001): 39-77. Mon. 10 Feb. 2014. Confederation Square, Canadian Register of Historic Places. Parks Canada. Web. Mon. 17 Mar. 2014. Reconciliation, the Peacekeeping Monument. Canadian Heritage. Government of Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage. Web. Tue. 25 Mar. 2014. Rombout, Melissa. Ottawa: on Display. Ottawa: Ottawa Art Gallery, 2002. Print. Rybczynski, Witold. City life: urban expectations in a new world. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1995. Print. Ryden, Kent C. Mapping the Invisible Landscape: Folklore, Writing and the Sense of Place. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993. Print. Taylor, John. Ottawa: and Illustrated History. Toronto: Lorimer, 1986. Print.

16 HEATHER LEROUX

The Valiants Memorial, Canadian Heritage. Government of Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage. Web. Tue. 25 Mar. 2014.

CAPSTONE SEMINAR SERIES (Re)Negotiating Artifacts of Canadian Narratives of Identity, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2014.

17