self as place

Places we inhabit are more than geography; we build individual and community history, so that places incorporate all of the stories and experiences related to history, politics, language and more.

Self As Place

• Project Description

• The theme for this year's digital composite project is “Self as Place”. You are asked to consider your relationship to your environment. Think about how place has both influenced your identity, and conversely, how you exercise change within your environment. You can define your environment as a microcosm, a small system inside of a larger system or as a macrocosm (the larger picture). Do not try to represent everything about yourself, select one thing that you wish to explore in this project. In your course textbook "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art" on page 30 McCloud refers to this as "amplification through simplification". In your project, consider how you can "remove details" to "focus your attention on an idea" (McCloud pp 30 -31). (Please note: I am not asking you to make a cartoon).

• This project is thematically similar to the VAG “Self As Place”

exhibition

Review: Self as Placelandscape as advertisement

Frederick Ferdinand SchaferMount Baker from near Victoria, British Columbia Painted between 1880 - 1886

Review: Self as Placelandscape of ideas

N.E. THING COMPANYVSI Formula #14, 1968/81(printed map, felt pen, graphite on paper, silver prints, 56" x 40")


CHRISTOS DIKEAKOSTotem poles, Stanley Park, 1991-92, Sites and Place Names: Vancouver(c. print, glass with sandblasted text 21" x 41")


The Pine on the Corner, 1990Jeff Wall

“To me, then, landscape as a genre is involved with making visual the distances we must maintain between ourselves in order that we may recognize each other for what , under constantly varying conditions, we appear to be. It is only at a certain distance (and from a certain angle) that we can recognize that the character of the communal life of the individual - or the communal reality of those who appear so convincingly under other conditions to be individuals.” - Jeff Wall from About Making Landscapes


Roy Arden (1957 - ) Landfill, Richmond, B.C. 1991ektacolour print on paper104.10 X 129.50 cmCollection of The Winnipeg Art Gallery; Acquired with funds from the Estate of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Naylor


IAN WALLACEClayoquot Protest (August 9, 1993) II, 1993-95(photolaminate with acrylic and oil on canvas 48" x 59")


BRIAN JUNGENPrototype for New Understanding #5, 1998(Nike Air Jordans and hair, 22" x 27" x 5")

Self as Placelandscape of ideas

BRIAN JUNGENShapeshifter, 2000(plastic chairs, 23' x 7' x 5')

Self as Placeother Vancouver artists

ALEX MORRISONInstallation view - Every House I've Ever Lived In..., 2000 (Felt Tip Pen on Wall)


ALEX MORRISONHomewrecker, 2001(Video Still)


KELLY WOODFast Food, 2001(6 c - prints mounted on archival board 22" x 42")

KELLY WOODDetail: Continuous Garbage Project, year 1, 1998(1 of 70 c-prints, 20" x 16" each)

Home and Away

Fiona TanSaint Sebastian, 2001 video installation Courtesy of Frith Street Gallery, London

238 West 22nd St., Apt. A, New York, Ny 10011

Do-Ho Suh238 West 22nd St., Apt. A, New York, Ny 10011, 2000, installation

238 West 22nd St., Apt. A,

Portable City-Beijing


Beijing Opera Portable City-Beijing


Yin Xiuzhen, Beijing Opera, 2000/2001Installation. Photographs, stools,

Self as Place:Process• Ideas to consider:

• This list is to get you thinking about your project and is no way meant to be exhaustive, you may or may not decide to choose a topic on this list. What is important is that you choose a topic that is meaningful to you and expresses yourself in terms of where you live.

• 1. Have you moved here from another culture, how has this affected your sense of identity, traditions, relationship to family or others.

• 2. Is there urban space, such as a mall, skate park, park etc. which has a particular meaning to you. How does it play a role in you defining yourself as a person.

• 3. Are there personal or family traditions that are of particular important in your life, where do they take place, has this place evolved over time, has it become a hybrid of new and old materials.

• 4. Are there daily events that in some way define you? These could be banal, such as sleeping, watching TV, making eggs, chatting on-line, etc.

• 5. What if you thought of your life as a space, a colour, a line, an emotion, …

• We will be discussing this project on an on going basis to help you develop your concepts.

self as place

Documents