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Espace Sculpture

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"Mapping and Marking" public art program Alison Appelbe

Arts médiatiques, sculpture et installation Mediatic Arts, Sculpture & Installation Number 92, Summer 2010

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/63038ac

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Publisher(s) Le Centre de diffusion 3D

ISSN 0821-9222 (print) 1923-2551 (digital)

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Cite this review Appelbe, A. (2010). Review of ["Mapping and Marking" public art program]. Espace Sculpture, (92), 38–40.

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“MAPPING and MARKING” public art program

Alison APPELBE

An imposing sign erected where the gangs,” adds Lum, by which he right-of-way that cuts diagonally and property values have (arguably) historically poorer and tougher East means mostly tough-seeming teen through the city. And while Main pushed that division east. boys who hung out and engaged in Street, about a dozen blocks to the Clark and East 6th is gritty, and meets the more affluent the likes of fistfights. “It was a rich west, was historically the (unofficial) Lum likes the location for that and influential Westside may be the symbol. And it was stealthy. Pretty division between East and West reason. Also, East 6th ends at Clark most visible—and talked much everybody on the Eastside was Vancouver, the growing affluence like a T, forcing traffic to turn left or familiar with it. It has survived since about—piece of public art ever the 1940s, but it was never formal- erected in the city. ized.” In January, Ken Lum’s Monument The fact that the words “East” and for East Vancouver was lifted by “Van” form a “cross” only adds to its complexity, with Lum believing that crane and planted in a railway the “sacrilegious” aspect of what is a embankment at Clark Drive and East territorial symbol or statement 6th Avenue—directly above the cancels out any purely religious inference. At the same time, he says Vancouver Community College-Clark that the “cross” may hint at the Drive Skytrain station. suffering experienced by immigrant This 18.2-metre-high groups largely confined to the east of “cross”—containing the words “East” the city. and “Van,” with the two words inter- And bloggers have views. “I think secting at the letter “a”—serves as it’s offensive. It really looks like a both a territorial marker and revival cross to me and I’m not Christian,” of an underground symbol of pride posts Julie. Retorts blogger Jay: “If it and rebellion in East Van. Though had Jesus strapped to it, you would never “formalized,” the symbol has have a point.” existed in East Vancouver for more Lum also see sociological irony in than 60 years. The sign also functions “East Van rules.” It might also refer, as a powerful (critics might argue “in- he says, to rigid restrictions imposed, your-face”) landmark. for example, on Catholic immigrants, “It’s epic at night,” says one of by church and family. Yet another many bloggers who have commented commenter suggests that Lum, an on its appeal and meaning. “It sucks. internationally successful artist, has It’s a nightmare. Please take it down,” simply capitulated. “What was once a says another voice in a multi-thread jiffy-markered icon of working-class discussion. “All I did was lift the shit-kicker wearing tough guys and repression [of the symbol] and every- hooligans (has been) reinvented as a body starts spouting on the chat symbol of branding and gentrifica- lines,” says a delighted Lum. tion,” he writes. Because today, Born and raised in East when a shoddy East Vancouver Vancouver, Ken Lum has long been bungalow on a 33-foot lot costs $1 familiar with the intersecting phrase million, even the East Side is affluent “East Van” and its function as graffiti and gentrified. or underground symbol. “It was Monument for East Vancouver is provisional—maybe knifed into a one of eight works in the City of school desk or written on the outside Vancouver’s “Mapping and Marking” wall of a grocery store,” Lum says. public art program, coinciding with “Somehow it kind of floated. And the 2010 Winter Olympic and Para- sometime you’d see the word ‘rules’ lympic Games. Costing more than underneath” (either suggesting, $200,000 (a quarter of the Mapping falsely, that East Van ran or runs the and Marking budget), Lum’s work is wider city, or simply boasting of a steel, aluminum and Plexiglas power). structure embedded in an embank- “It was adopted by Eastside ment along a submerged railway

38 ESPACE 92 ÉTÉ/SUMMER 2010 Anna RUTH, Sensory Maps of the City of Vancouver, 2009. Photo: A. Appelbe.

right—another delicious irony. Also, Vancouver work is Four Boats Clark Drive is the city’s major north- Stranded: Red and Yellow, Black and south truck route. “It’s a mess,” Lum White on the roof of the Vancouver admits. “You don’t see anything like Art Gallery. A seven-metre-tall globe, it on the Westside.” The “Monument” called Jan. 1, 1960 in reference to a rises above this scene—utterly worldwide process of decolonization, unavoidable, especially if you’re was recently unveiled in Utrecht in driving from the west. “A lot of work the Netherlands. Lum has partici- went into the design of the construc- pated in numerous international tion,” says Lum, who rejects criticism biennales, and taught at the Univer- that he “appropriated” the symbol. sity of British Columbia and École The “cross” is outlined and “the Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts corners are softened.” In daylight, the in Paris. < silver paint makes it bright. At dusk, a Ken LUM, Monument computer trips photo cells that turn “MAPPING AND MARKING” for East Vancouver, 2009. on LED lights. At night it’s truly PUBLIC ART PROGRAM Photo: A. Appelbe. dramatic. Among the seven other projects in > In the end, Monument for East the City of Vancouver’s “Mapping David MacWILLIAM, Kingsway Vancouver is about bringing an and Marking” public art program is Luminaires, 2009. Photo: City historic Eastside attitude—proud artist Fiona Bowie’s video and of Vancouver. and tough—to public attention. photography-based work called “The piece monumentalizes a rear- Surface. A regular passenger ferry on guard gesture of defiance, protest Vancouver’s is fitted with and assertion of identity,” Lum two underwater cameras that docu- writes. “To say that this will probably ment marine life and transmit the become an iconic, and likely cher- information onto a number of above ished, symbol of East Vancouver is… water locations, including the an understatement,” adds blogger website www.surfacer.ca. Surface is Mike Klassen on City Focus. intended to draw attention to a Ken Lum is concerned with history of industrial pollution of private and public identity, space and False Creek, as well as the dire condi- politics. He’s known particularly for tion of large water bodies around his photo-text work. Another major the world. Says Bowie, whose work is Geoffrey FARMER, Every Letter In The Alphabet, 2009. Photo: City of Vancouver.

Michael LIM, A Modest Veil (temporary, , Georgia Street). Photo: A. Appelbe.

Ron TERADA, The Words Don’t Fit the Picture, 2009. Permanent installation, Vancouver Central Library Plaza. Photo: A. Appelbe.

exhibited in Canada, the U.S. and Ocean Cement plant on Granville Europe: “We’re at a point where our Island, where it can be seen from oceans are in a real state, and part of the water and north False Creek; this for me is bringing this issue to monitors present it in the nearby the surface.” With the cooperation of and Roundhouse the firm Aquabus, Bowie has community centres, as well as installed two cameras under one of online (where its viewable, Bowie its ferries—a colour video camera points out, on many portable (with a underwater LYNN T38 devices). enhancement that penetrates murky Anna Ruth created Sensory conditions) and an infrared camera Maps of the City of Vancouver. for photographing at night. A Educated in Vancouver, the artist computer relays the imaging to a returned here to continue work monitor on the ferry (where passen- on “the meaning of boundary gers can see it) and to a large LED through the exploration of line.” screen on a concrete tower at the For Sensory Maps of the City of Vancouver, Ruth rode 13 Vancouver public transit routes over a 15-hour period. On each defining a territory through a phys- Blue by Project Rainbow (Sydney CUE Artists’ Videos trip, she noted information about ical journey,” she writes. A graduate Vermont, Heidi Nutley, Jesse Birch (temporary, Vancouver Art the driver, passengers, weather of the Emily Carr University of Art and Jade Boyd) is an experimental Gallery, Robson Street). conditions and stops. At the same and Design and L’École Supérieure film and dance documentary, Photo: A. Appelbe. time, she recorded the vibrations of des Beaux-Arts de Cornouaille in featuring members of the Canadian < the vehicle on paper with pen. The France, Ruth now lives in Jyvaskyla, Women’s Ski Jumping Team at Rodney GRAHAM, information and drawings were Finland. settings in a changing East Aerodynamic Forms in transferred to posters installed in Other Mapping and Marking Vancouver. Paul Wong’s 5 features Space, 2009. Permanent glass-covered frames at 40 city bus projects include Vanessa Kwan’s five interdisciplinary arts and media installation, Georgia Street at Stanley Park. shelters. The result is a combination Vancouver Vancouver Vancouver, a events at five sites with five journeys, Photo: A. Appelbe. of printed information and large temporary mobile installation sensory experiences, etc., and Geof- abstract line drawing. Numbers on consisting of custom-made postcards, frey Farmer’s Every Letter In The the drawing, linked to a table, indi- sculptural “kiosk” and interactive Alphabet is a series of temporary cate where, for example, the over- website, and David MacWilliam’s exhibits on the subject of text and head bus cables came off the electric Kingsway Luminaires, a series of the city. All the events ran wires. Ruth describes the work as hand-cast opaque forms on lamp throughout the Olympic period. < “experiential” rather than a state- stands along Knight Street at Alison APPELBE is a Vancouver-based free- ment about public transit. “These Kingsway in East Vancouver. The LED lance writer and photographer, with a special drawings evoke a traditional type of lights, which change colour from interest in art, architecture and travel, particu- mapping; exploring, discovering and dusk to dawn, reflect historic fixtures. larly to historic places.

40 ESPACE 92 ÉTÉ/SUMMER 2010