Update on Stan Douglas’ “Abbott and Cordova, 7 August 1971”, courtesy Shaun Dacey
Though I still haven’t had a chance to see it (made a failed attempt this summer, but Woodwards still wasn’t open at that point), Stan Douglas’ highly anticipated photomural Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971 is finally up in the lobby of the former department store, now mixed housing and condos in the Downtown Eastside. My friend and colleague Shaun Dacey, who is currently completing his MA in Critical and Curatorial Studies at UBC, recently wrote a piece on the photo for Megaphone magazine, which was reprinted in The Tyee this week.
Dacey’s article is a nice blend of historical context and current attitudes towards the building and location, plus it includes a few quotes from Douglas and some great photos of him working on the fabricated set:“The riot was a critical juncture in the history of the Downtown Eastside,” [Douglas] said. “It affected civic attitudes toward the neighbourhood that would eventually be manifest in zoning and policing policies. The Woodward’s complex is itself another juncture, but hopefully a more positive one.”
The photo also parallels some current events in the city, including the almost daily anti-Olympic protests centring around the Vancouver Art Gallery and Robson Square. Vancouver writer Danielle Egan is providing weekly updates on the impact of the Games on the arts community in the city for Canadian Art online and her first dispatch has been illuminating. I feel like the coverage I’ve been getting (in between the documentation of all of the events) from CTV has been very light on the political and social implications of the Games, so am looking forward to more reports from Egan.
Worth a look as well (and directly across from the Woodwards building in a storefront pictured in Douglas’ Every Building on 100 West Hastings) is Isabelle Hayeur‘s Fire with Fire installation, which includes 3 projectors showing a hyperrealistic inferno consuming a building in the neighbourhood:
FIRE WITH FIRE from ISABELLE HAYEUR on Vimeo.
The Downtown Ambassadors, who wear outfits identical to Hilder’s, is a group of real-life volunteers in Vancouver who work to provide directions to tourists and to “keep the streets clean”, which often involves awkward intervention into the lives of the many people who live on the streets of downtown. For Hilder’s performance, however, the artist “patrolled tourist areas of Vancouver dressed in a uniform resembling the distinctive garb of the Downtown Ambassadors, a ‘hospitality force’ established by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association. But rather than providing helpful tourist hints to visitors, or moving homeless people along, Hilder provided the alternative histories of these sites as well as their relationship to the present political and economic climate of Vancouver.”
Documentation of Hilder’s performance is available through the Audain Gallery’s website.
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