>>PREVIEW
EASTEND
Runs until March 17
John Dean and Derek Besant
Nickle Arts Museum (University of Calgary)
EastEnd, an exhibition (and accompanying book project) of photographs by John Dean and narrative by Derek Besant takes us back to a time in Calgary’s history that is not so different than its present.
It is the late 1970s, and old buildings are about to be torn down to make way for new. The black and white photos and sweeping narrative that comprise this exhibition are pulled together to service what is really a much larger story – how settlements become villages, villages morph into towns, towns into cities and dare I say it, cities evolve into metropolises.
Invariably, someone is displaced in this lock-stepped "march towards progress." And more often than not it’s someone with little political clout or money.
In EastEnd, Dean documents a place where a clutch of ramshackle buildings housing an array of idiosyncratic businesses existed on and around the 300 block of downtown Calgary – that is, until their demise in 1981 when the bulldozers set to work. As noted in a photograph and text included in the exhibition, the area today is the site of the city’s Municipal Building, often derisively referred to as "the blue iceberg."
There are at least two ways to view this exhibition: a valiant effort to document a moment in Calgary’s history, or an artistic indictment of the cavalier destruction of a neigbhourhood.
It works best as a document free of political agendas and hand wringing.
What Dean and Besant discovered when they set out so many years ago was a true neighbourhood despite it being held together by pawn shops, used furniture stores, shoe repair shops and a Turkish steam bath. Each shop, basement business and alley repair spot was integral to the place they explored together in the late ’70s. The same neighbourhood Dean now delivers for our inspection some three decades later.
Visually this series of black and white images range from dull to magical. In the dull category fall a number of photos that merely show junk and fail to communicate anything further about the people at whose stuff we now stare.
On the other end of the spectrum are the images of the Dominion Shoe Shop. In one picture, we see a row of cowboy boots that have been lined up under the flaking letters painted on the store’s front window that spell out the name of the business. A metaphor for Calgary’s underlying "cowboy culture," it summarizes in eloquent fashion the demise of one of the city’s earliest neighbourhoods.
In another picture is a small wooden plaque nailed to the wall. It reads "best shine in town," and has been placed next to an abandoned shoeshine stand that Dean has paid homage to.
Another set of strong images are of the Calgary Turkish Steam Bath. In one, we see a 1977 calendar tacked to the wall along with a nearby sign that reads, "Steam Bath $4.00, 3 hour time limit." In another is a deserted locker room showing wooden lockers marked with the numbers 10 to 21 and an ashcan set in the corner of this desolate room. If there’s a lonelier photograph I haven’t seen it.
What would have contributed to viewing these photographs are title cards outlining specific information about the buildings and occasional people who appear within the frames.
Instead, there is the Besant narrative that has been affixed in sections to the walls of the gallery. Its presentation left me unconvinced. Perhaps a more effective way to present Besant’s words would have been to play an audio recording of the narrative overhead.
Not all is lost. Besant’s introduction remains vivid when he writes, "The street culture itself was like a compartmentalized artifact to a memory." |
Copyright ©2007 FFWD. All rights reserved.