Category Archives: Pierre Belanger

Answering back!

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The Art Caravan is working towards informing its subjects about the discussion in this blog.  After writing a post, I often send an email to the artist to tell them I wrote about their work.  I have been pleasantly surprised that artists like Jennifer Stilwell (June 2) and Anila Agha promptly responded to my emails.  (If you haven’t read the January 15 posting on Agha’s installation, please do so! Right now is as good a time as any…..just click here.)

Pierre Belanger, landscape architect, and head of the Canadian installation at this year’s Venice Biennale for Architecture, responded to last week’s blog posting, Can You Tell Me What’s Going On Here?  In the last paragraph I wrote:  I did enjoy the variety of ways the ideas are presented. I only wish the presentation had provided a vision for a way forward.

I was somewhat surprised, but happy to hear back from M. Belanger. Here is his response, in part:

The conversation we are looking to curate next year across Canada during our tour will hopefully address your questions about strategies moving forward. For us, it was important to first put this issue on the table, for which most Canadians (let alone Europeans) that live in big metropolitan regions are unaware of, nor really care to think much about. There is a huge part of territorial history that Canadians need to know about, and we believe that this project of mapping is a projective in itself. The lens it casts on Canada opens up many unheard voices with many ideas, old and new, about the future. We’re simply providing grounds for those voices to be heard, understood, and acted upon.

He genuinely seems interested in continuing the dialogue.  It’s a timely discussion, considering  yesterday’s beginning of the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.  This is, hopefully, the season for truth telling and reconciliation in Canadian society.

photo by T. Vatrt

“Can you tell me what’s going on here?”

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….I asked the host/interpreter who was standing near the Canadian entry at the Biennale Architettura in Venice. I could tell he was the host, because he was wearing a ball cap, and standing near a fold-up table displaying printed materials. Seriously.

(With true patriot love,  I had chosen the Canadian pavilion as my first stop when I -finally!- found the portion of the Biennale hosting the permanent pavilions.)  After discovering the installation wasn’t actually inside the Canadian pavilion (it’s being renovated, but the Canucks in the crowd will be happy to know it has gorgeous water views) this is what I saw…..

image from edmontonjournal.com

I had initially walked past , not understanding that this is Extraction, the Canadian presence at the 2016 Biennale for Architecture.

image from cbc.ca

Perhaps you understand my confusion.

The young man in the ball cap was happy to answer my questions and explain the project to me.  He’s an architecture student at Harvard, studying under the Canadian Pierre Belanger, a co-director of the Post Graduate Design Program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.  He said Extraction is based on Canada’s role in resource extraction, both nationally and internationally.  It seeks to ask all kinds of questions about the global impact of resource extraction.

Here’s a quote from the catalogue:  Extraction redefines our understanding of urbanization in the 21st century.  If everything we build comes from the ground, then extraction is the process and practice that reshapes our assumptions about urban economies……..Where do these materials come from?  Whose lands? Whose laws? Where do they go?  Who processes them? How are they moved?……From land rights to mineral rights, aboveground and underground, between rule and representation of the ground, every dimension of urban life is mediated by resource extraction.  It is our urban, political and cultural ore.

He explained that the white sacks are filled with gold ore from an abandoned Canadian mining company’s project on the Italian island of Sardinia….a project that left behind a poisonous spill.  On the ground is a gold survey stake, marking the intersection of the UK, France and Canada pavilions.  Inside is a peep hole, where you can lie down and watch the film 800 Years of Empire in 800 images in 800 Seconds.

image from cbc.ca

 

Yes!  I did lie down, and watch the whole film.

No, I did not have an audience.

 

Click here for Extraction’s  website.

 

You may want to read Robert Enright’s interview with Pierre Belanger in the arts journal, Border Crossings.  (Find it here.) It helped me to further understand the conceptual nature of the project. The CBC’s News article (click here) acknowledged the controversial nature of the installation.

I asked the young man how the project is being received.  He told me most visitors liked it enthusiastically;  Canadians were less pleased.  My quibble isn’t with the conceptual nature of the project, or the issues raised.  It’s important that we question, and acknowledge the sources of the materials for our built environment. I did enjoy the variety of ways the ideas are presented.  I only wish the presentation had provided a vision for a way forward.  How do we deal with the environment in a sustainable manner?  How should we extract resources in a way that is both ethical and sustainable?  Big, challenging questions, I know.  But isn’t that why we have events like the Biennale?  It’s important to ask the difficult questions, and to also offer up possible solutions, and a way (or three) forward.