>>REVIEW
CAMPSITES
Runs until Aug. 21
Walter Phillips Gallery (The Banff Centre)
Shelter, theorized American psychologist Abraham Maslow in his outline of the hierarchy of needs, is one of the first things human beings require to stay alive. Enshrined as a basic human right by the United Nations in its International Bill of Rights, almost all agree it’s fundamental to our existence.
And yet millions of people around the world, including thousands of Calgarians, have no shelter at all.
This point forms the foundation of CAMPsites, an exhibition currently at The Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery.
The works featured in the show "confront notions of class, displacement, and the social and activist functions of contemporary art practice," writes CAMPsites curator Melanie Townsend in the gallery notes. "Issues of survival, shelter, and the portability of home are central in this exploration of the varied notions of campsites."
Functioning as a sort of wake-up call, CAMPsites is more than an exhibition of contemporary art – it’s a poke in the ribs, a provocation to those of us who live contentedly in safe, secure bubbles and forget about the people among us without a warm place to lie down for the night.
The plight of the homeless is brought vividly to light by Vancouver-based artist Rebecca Belmore in her 1994 work Untitled (A Blanket for Sarah). What at first appears to be just another modern work of art comprised of a series of panels is, in fact, a visual death poem made from stretched nylon and pine needles – the material upon which outdoor enthusiasts often bed down when camping.
As Townsend points out to viewers, "the once soft and aromatic bedding has turned brown, stiff and razor sharp, a poignant reminder of the homeless woman who froze to death on the streets of Sioux Lookout, Ont. (Belmore’s hometown) for whom the work was made."
Another work on this theme is Tsuyoshi Ozawa’s Ivan the Fool (Capsule Hotel Project). The artist takes so-called "capsule hotels" (used as overnight accommodation in Tokyo by business commuters and travellers who have missed their trains) and places the plastic pods next to similarly sized homeless shelters.
The result is an abrupt illustration of how shelter is viewed by two distinct groups. In the first circumstance, the high-tech capsule is designed for comfort (including lights and a television set) and in the second, the mini-shelters are jerry-built structures made from whatever material can be scrounged up for the sole purpose of surviving another night on the streets.
Squatting is the focus of EAT: Mainstreet Dinner for the Homeless, a four-minute-long video from 2005 Governor General’s Award-winning artist Paul Wong. He trains his camera on a sizeable group of homeless people that moved into an abandoned Woodward’s department store building in Vancouver’s downtown East Side in December 2002, where they camped out in an attempt to stay off the city’s rain-soaked streets.
What starts off in the video as a "tent city," eventually evolves into a powerful protest by those who are too often ignored. Caught by Wong’s lens is a sign in one scene with the words, "The homeless are not just going to disappear." |
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