The only constant in an urban environment that transitions between
residential use and industrial use is change. This ongoing series
in and around the Port area in North Vancouver speaks to the
changes in place, people and environs and, as such, is really
a personal narrative as it speaks also to how my perceptions
of this rich and dynamic environment have changed over time.
I am intrigued by the inherent truth of object and place beyond
the obvious first reading and am drawn to the fact that the
real truth is often not as it appears. My real interest in this
rich urban environment lies in the hidden narrative implicit
in the Port (or any Port in North America). Given that 85% of
containers that come into a port are not inspected, it is the
Post-911 world we live in that contends that it will be a Port
that will be the future gateway for the nuclear weapon that
will (not when or if) arrive on our shores. This series through
symbolism, colour and subject etc. indirectly references the
flip side of what we see in a typical urban port . . . to that
which is implicit, but hidden. The series ties in with my interest
in contrast, in the sublime and in the dark side of urban industrial
areas.
The "why" of this series is simply a documentation
over time of the shifts that are taking place within the fixed
structure of the Port. These are never the same, as people,
product, light, weather change each day never to be repeated.
Architecture has been described as frozen music. If I were to
put a musical structure to the Port and environs, it would have
to be a fugue. The Port has a pulse, both visual and auditory
and constant, yet like a fugue, it shifts and changes as other
voices emerge. The products of commerce, piles of plywood appear
and disappear as an area under incredible development pressure,
transitions between polar opposites and gentrification of this
area starts to encroach on the waterfront. Containers with building
debris, compete for space with containers of product. Marginal
businesses disappear and new business people, with a taste for
risk in an area under transition look to become established.
This series documents disparate subject matter, people, place,
product – all within the time signature of the North Vancouver
Port Authority. And my interest extends to the commercial every
day culture from building materials to the business people who
are attracted to an “interface industrial area”.
It is no secret that the area has a less than obvious side that
speaks to the businesses and people who identify with urban
spaces under transition – myself being one of them.
This ongoing series photographed over time speaks to the changes
in both a sense of space, place, people and time, but also perceptions.
The post-911 Port has a new voice and that voice of impending
violence and change does not lie far below the surface and the
facade of business as usual! Follow are my thoughts on each
series of work in this exhibit.
A Continuation of the “PORT SERIES”
I developed a taste for neighbourhoods on the “wrong side
of the tracks” as a grad student at M.I.T. when I signed
up for an Urban Planning Course that brought me into a failed
public housing project, the size of a small city. The development
had so pressured and ghettoized that people, in their anger,
were burning down their own dwellings. Armed guards protected
us while we documented the project, met with the inhabitants
--ranging from welfare moms to drug dealers -- and found out
over time, to our education and humility, that human worth and
value is not bound by race, education, wealth or where you hang
your hat.
I discovered within the chaos, the graffiti, the disorder and,
at times, the Alice in Wonderland-like surrealness, that nothing
was as it had originally appeared. I learned that until we scratch
below the surface, we do not have a chance of finding the “inherent
truth” of both people and place in any given setting.
This profound realization, still fresh in my memory, was the
seed for this series photographed over time at the North Vancouver
Port, an area post-911 under intense scrutiny, change and development
pressure.
I live and work in this area and, as a result of my background
in Architecture and Design, am drawn to the port as a continuous
source of spatial and structural interest. It is an environment
in motion: playful one moment, dangerous the next. New middle-
class housing now competes for joint alley space with drug
dealers and dumpster divers. I am also attracted to the inherent
beauty of an industrial setting and the challenge to think
and look in new ways at the buildings and products of commerce
and simple every day materials. Lastly, I am drawn on a personal
level to the inhabitants and new entrepreneurs who are attracted
to this transitioning neighbourhood; one sometimes raw, sometimes
dangerous and always beautiful.
TERROR CODE: A TRIPTYCH AND OTHERS
The genesis for the direction of the triptych “Terror
Code” is the post-911 paranoia and climate of fear that
is the hidden narrative in all port cities. This series evolved
directly from a current statistic that 85% of all shipping
containers that enter ports in North America today are not
inspected! The U.S. Homeland Security confirms the “obvious”:
undoubtedly a port will be the gateway for “when”
-- not “if” -- a nuclear weapon is smuggled in
. . . at which time all hell will break loose!
The simple red, yellow and green street lights (TERROR CODE)
in front of the laconic, fog-bound and disembodied ship prow
speaks to me of the now iconic “terrorist alert”
color symbols repetitively etched into our consciousness .
. . imagery calculated by politicians and media to keep a
population on alert and in fear . . . a grid of shipping containers
– have they been inspected or not? (CONTAINER GRID)
. . . a grain elevator (BEYOND THE OBVIOUS) on red alert (maybe)
and biker graffiti artists painting a Port’s entrepreneur’s
vision of a target market (DAVE AND GRINCH), (HELL’S
GATE) become timely symbols of the Port’s potential
for Armageddon.
PLYWOOD: A SERIES
Within the framework or rhythm of the Port, there are so
many different voices there is almost a fugue-like resonance.
These images of plywood, haiku-like in their simplicity, speak
to my interests in form, space and transformation and are
the conceptual root of this body of work. For a few months,
these piles of plywood were sitting in one of the Port’s
holding yards and then disappeared like a dream (perhaps they
made their way into the White Light Series, but that is a
bit of a stretch even for me). By the process of de-contextualizing
a simple utilitarian product like plywood, the “ordinary
is made extraordinary”. Maybe it is all about seeing,
a prodding of our collective imaginations, a reshaping of
the paradigm of our perceptions.
WHITE LIGHT: A Continuation of the Pemberton Series
In those few brief moments when white light (Ode to Isaac Newton)
transforms a rural construction site (a neighbour’s barn),
the ordinary takes on a transformative and otherworldly quality.
I am drawn to the sense of moving through each of these spaces
beyond the temporal and into the undefined or mystical . . .
space . . . place . . . that awaits on the other side of the
picture plane.
Grace Gordon-Collins, February 2006 |
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Container Grid, 2006 |
