I am interested in seeing what now constitutes as landscape and
why. In a recent survey, Vancouver was apparently ranked as number one
in the entire world for “ease of doing business” (Vancouver Matters
p 89). Vancouver prides itself on being multicultural, an
“eco-metropolis”, or a high-density urban space which closely and
harmoniously neighbors “nature.” Our landscape and our views of it are
what brings people and keeps people here. By looking at a painting of a
pleasant or typically beautiful image of a landscape, it gives people of
non-native ancestry a relief from their technological and pioneer
guilt, (that they only drained %50 of the wetlands and erased only
some of its local inhabitants) (On Landscape 47). Phew. So
what happens when one sees my landscape re-representations?
Representations of Vancouver as the “ubiquitous nowhere”? What kind of
nature and urban space is being commodified?
The first installment of this semester’s project was a series of small scale collage portraits of Bryant Park in New York. Or perhaps they were portraits of myself, viewing in as a tourist. I am interested in how the outsider often recklessly attempts to provide the insider with notions or assumptions of what the insiders’ culture is.
The second, a snow globe and small cardboard platforms displaying constructed miniature landscapes, or model environments. For this last edition (but not the end of) this project is a work of 5 photographs in the format of postcards of dioramas of local “non-places” that I have modeled (10 editions of each photo). This final installment is to comment on the re-examination of landscape, or the landscape which I have photographed and then constructed in miniature scale and then photographed again, which are printed as a consumable form.
I have come across Susan Stewart’s book On Longing which has helped me understand the importance of the role of the viewer, participant or maker of the miniature, rather than simply the miniature itself. Why do we enjoy looking at or constructing the miniature? Perhaps it has something to do with control, with nostalgia, with belonging or simply because we are fascinated by the skill involved in making it. I am still not entirely sure why I find the miniature so interesting. It started from constructing “displays” in my Victorian-style dollhouse I think.
Regarding the miniature’s place in the dialogue of “the city” today, Stewart notes that when we “engage in the mode of consciousness offered by existence within the city, distance is collapsed [...] perception becomes fragmentary and above all temporal” (79). This fragmented perspective reminds me of my chosen mediums of assemblage and collage for this project. The subjects in the Bryant Park series are collaged from disparate items to attempt a “whole.” And when I think of the metaphorical mash-up within the monster creation in Frankenstein (an almost collaged monster), he, or it, is alone. He looks into the house of the peasants yearning for some kind of connection or understanding, as we perhaps look like while holding or viewing a miniature, or looking out onto downtown from our isolating glass boxes. Peering down into the pristine architectural models in developers’ offices or showrooms, some of us see the potential in owning a valuable box in the glass tower and yearn to obtain it. However, when I look at these models, my feelings are mixed between playfulness and melancholy. For, these future towers, despite the amount of people they can house, are often inescapably lonely, isolating and lack individuality and imagination. I realize that these attributes may be used by some to describe the non-places which I re-create. Yet, the anonymity, hidden history and existence as actual places today depicted in my miniatures hold value for me. For, they help us understand where we’ve come from, what we’re doing and what we should expect for the city of Vancouver in a rather indirect and absurd way.
As Stewart writes of the souvenir, she points out that “the souvenir is often attached to locations and experiences that are not for sale.” In other words, one usually doesn’t find a postcard with an image of someone shopping. However, typically a Vancouver postcard shows the city off as a place to live and work and go kayaking on weekends. How is this experience not for sale? The locations I depict in my work are non-places, which perhaps makes them vulnerable to being sold in the real estate market. For, they have no obvious importance, or memory attached to them. My project is to ask the viewer what type of landscape holds value and why. Do we yearn to visit these landscapes, in their re-contextualized miniature form, in real life? Or are we content with seeing the image of the object of the original? I am content with my unanswered questions, for it keeps the project ongoing.
The first installment of this semester’s project was a series of small scale collage portraits of Bryant Park in New York. Or perhaps they were portraits of myself, viewing in as a tourist. I am interested in how the outsider often recklessly attempts to provide the insider with notions or assumptions of what the insiders’ culture is.
The second, a snow globe and small cardboard platforms displaying constructed miniature landscapes, or model environments. For this last edition (but not the end of) this project is a work of 5 photographs in the format of postcards of dioramas of local “non-places” that I have modeled (10 editions of each photo). This final installment is to comment on the re-examination of landscape, or the landscape which I have photographed and then constructed in miniature scale and then photographed again, which are printed as a consumable form.
I have come across Susan Stewart’s book On Longing which has helped me understand the importance of the role of the viewer, participant or maker of the miniature, rather than simply the miniature itself. Why do we enjoy looking at or constructing the miniature? Perhaps it has something to do with control, with nostalgia, with belonging or simply because we are fascinated by the skill involved in making it. I am still not entirely sure why I find the miniature so interesting. It started from constructing “displays” in my Victorian-style dollhouse I think.
Regarding the miniature’s place in the dialogue of “the city” today, Stewart notes that when we “engage in the mode of consciousness offered by existence within the city, distance is collapsed [...] perception becomes fragmentary and above all temporal” (79). This fragmented perspective reminds me of my chosen mediums of assemblage and collage for this project. The subjects in the Bryant Park series are collaged from disparate items to attempt a “whole.” And when I think of the metaphorical mash-up within the monster creation in Frankenstein (an almost collaged monster), he, or it, is alone. He looks into the house of the peasants yearning for some kind of connection or understanding, as we perhaps look like while holding or viewing a miniature, or looking out onto downtown from our isolating glass boxes. Peering down into the pristine architectural models in developers’ offices or showrooms, some of us see the potential in owning a valuable box in the glass tower and yearn to obtain it. However, when I look at these models, my feelings are mixed between playfulness and melancholy. For, these future towers, despite the amount of people they can house, are often inescapably lonely, isolating and lack individuality and imagination. I realize that these attributes may be used by some to describe the non-places which I re-create. Yet, the anonymity, hidden history and existence as actual places today depicted in my miniatures hold value for me. For, they help us understand where we’ve come from, what we’re doing and what we should expect for the city of Vancouver in a rather indirect and absurd way.
As Stewart writes of the souvenir, she points out that “the souvenir is often attached to locations and experiences that are not for sale.” In other words, one usually doesn’t find a postcard with an image of someone shopping. However, typically a Vancouver postcard shows the city off as a place to live and work and go kayaking on weekends. How is this experience not for sale? The locations I depict in my work are non-places, which perhaps makes them vulnerable to being sold in the real estate market. For, they have no obvious importance, or memory attached to them. My project is to ask the viewer what type of landscape holds value and why. Do we yearn to visit these landscapes, in their re-contextualized miniature form, in real life? Or are we content with seeing the image of the object of the original? I am content with my unanswered questions, for it keeps the project ongoing.
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