No More Vancouver Postcards

When I was asked to submit images for an exhibit titled Incidental Geography: Photographic meditations on the Vancouver landscape I wasn't so sure.

As a photographer, I'd long avoided tackling the physical reality of my hometown.

And my first reaction was, "Oh crap, a show about the abject landscape, lots of detritus strewn about under flat grey skies and scenes of construction."

My second, more positive thought was: "Well, that's the city as it is now. We'll need these images in the future."

I love the word abject. It reminds me of passing a hideous mountainside development near Maple Ridge a few years ago and hearing a friend apply to it the German word trostlos. It means "without consolation." It's a perfect and concise dismissal of the ill-considered, virus-like beige mountain warts those sub-divisions represent.

But what is accomplished by photographing such desolate sprawl, and other parts of my increasingly soulless, glossed over city?

Building a genre

Of course there is a long tradition among fine artists of tackling our urban landscape with the camera. Christos Dikeakos, Roy Arden, Ian Wallace, Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham, and now a second (and even third) generation of artists following in their footsteps have pretty much covered every possible modern view of Vancouver's built, un-built and semi-built environs in some formal fashion or other. For the most part, the work of these artists is seen in institutional settings. It can be dry and cold, funny and hyper-referential -- and it is our chief export to the modern art world's biggest museums.

Photographer Lee Hutzulak is the curator of Incidental Geography exhibit. He is to be lauded for his efforts to help a new generation of photographers raised in the shadow of the aforementioned artists get their work seen closer to the street. Not everybody is clamouring to see their giant backlit images of transitional urban Vancouver fuel a career in the art world. But nor is there middle ground for other approaches to emerge and receive exhibition space and support. Incidental Geography is an intuitively gathered mix of both formal and street photography. It offers a broader, looser take on things. There is no accompanying essay that references Derrida or Lacan and the Gaff Gallery is a rough, funky little space on the edge of town.

The timing of the show is telling. Lee had been inspired by two recent heavyweight photo shows at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Still showing is the mid-career retrospective of Roy Arden's work featuring some signature views of suburban development in the GVRD. The image used for the poster is an example of the best of this kind of work: elegant, revealing and human. And Fred Herzog's show of photographs of Vancouver's streets in the '50s and '60s (held at the VAG earlier this year) also struck a chord with Lee and the broader public and revived an interest in the city's history and photographic representation of it.

No more postcards

What few know is that only five years prior Fred Herzog was ready to chuck it all in the face of indifference to his work. And who could blame him? For the longest time our interest in local landscape was largely restricted to imagery for industry, civic projects and the tourist agenda. Our city archives contain many magnificent images but only recently have we become seriously interested in looking at the backside and the underside of the city to see how we really live and to reflect on how we might be impacted by the cityscape.

One thing is certain; you can't escape dealing with architecture on some level. This city has never given a shit about preserving its past and it's never really taken chances on its future with ambitious, intelligent architectural initiatives. Just look at the north shore of false creek. The continent's most conspicuous, free and clear parcel of development space. Look what we got: a Doug Coupland book cover. A nasty clutch of towers reflecting (for most of the year) grey skies. Not a SINGLE signature building a la the Sydney Opera House, the Guggenheim in Bilbao or even the public library in Seattle. No vision. No will. And so I realize I've thus far approached the city's physical body from a position of shame and disgust.

I was born and raised here. Rather than recall the successes of how the city actively took historical measures to give citizens waterfront access along English Bay, for example, I tend to see the many more opportunities lost to the machinations of the real estate huckster culture that predominates in this still frontier town. That's my bias. I'd love to see it shift and this show has made me think of what has motivated me to take the photos on display here and how I'll think about any future projects that deal with local landscape.

I wasn't alone in struggling with this. Another contributor to the show, Jessica Eaton, ended up dropping off a plastic bag full of shredded photographs. At first I was put off by the obvious provocation -- then I realized that it was merely a more extreme expression of my own anxiety over whether or not I even cared about photographing my city anymore . . . or caring about "fine art" photography (such as it is) at all. And without knowing Jessica's plans I'd submitted Print Futures an image of bales of shredded Vancouver area phone directories awaiting recycling. The two images became partners in the gallery space.

Eventually I realized that the best strategy is to keep things close to home, deal with what you know and feel strongly about. That said, every image I submitted was somehow reflective of transition, loss, destruction and public failure. Oh well. That's often the source of some great art -- and many a country music classic!

'Who needs art?'

A week after the show was hung, I was driving north along Pacific Avenue when I came across a billboard promoting a new tower. "WHO NEEDS ART?" it shouts over a dusky stock shot of False Creek without a hint of irony. It initially felt like a scream of "Fuck you!" to Vancouver's creative community and I was appalled it hadn't been vandalized yet. So do I photograph it so that the obvious vulgarity may find a future audience? Or do they have a point and should we just stop wasting our time and just carry on with our orgy of consumer nest-feathering in anticipation of blunting the effects of the next recession?

I think about it for a day, and I photograph it. I know at least ten other photographers will do the same thing. What is immediately striking is that the only point of interest in the photo is the Science World building, the "golf ball" and its reflection in the water. This is Concorde Pacific saying: "Look! We didn't do a single notable building on our site but we'll be happy to sell you a view of one that was done 20 years ago for Expo!" And if one were to pan left in the scene, you'd see a wall of towers made by a competing developer. Nice.

And so I have a Beckett Moment. "I can't go on. I'll go on . . ." hoping it may find a space on a gallery wall of the future to tell us about the values our city held in the early part of the 21st century.

Related Tyee stories:

• Photo Essay: A Desire Named Streetcar
  Slumbering Vancouver to Steveston rail line yearns for new life.
• Photo Essay: Framing Global Capitalism
  Edward Burtynsky's visions of a hyper-industrialized world. A Tyee interview and photo gallery.
• Street Stories
  Inside the worlds of invisible people living in our midst.