Façades, 2020-2021
Electric lightbox, plexiglass, powder-coated aluminium
60" x 24 x 6”, 36 x 36 x 6”, 54 x 46 x 6”, 48 x 24 x 6”
Conjuring images of changing streetscapes, Façades captures a combination of nostalgia, regret, and a sudden awareness of time—the feeling of not knowing that something is gone until it has disappeared and failing to remember what used to be there. Façades consists of four unmarked double-sided illuminated sign boxes. With words and information removed, formal and decorative elements of the signs are left behind, prompting associations and memories of the distantly familiar. The series functions as a line of unmarked urban tombstones and monuments, a question of what constitutes cultural space and heritage, and the subtext of linguistic messages. The lack of text in Façades removes an obvious indicator of the sign’s intended audience as’ blank ambiguity leaves room to openly interpret whether something is coming or going. With the clarity of language removed, what is conveyed to the reader? What is lost through this omission? Similarly, what elements of language and sign propel understandings and sentiments of hospitality or intimidation?
Installation photos by Derek Sandbeck. Believe it or Not, AKA Artist-Run, 2021, IFDocumentation, Artifacts of the Horizon, Part II, Patel Brown Gallery, 2021. Toni Hafkenscheid, I am land that remembers, Union Station, 2022.
This project was made possible with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
