Unsettled Series

The aim of my “Unsettled” series is to uncover and understand the conflict-ridden history of the white settlement of what is now called Canada. I explore this conflict through depictions of historic normative Caucasian people using space within both natural settings and growing cityscapes. I use historic imagery of European settlers to tell a story of what was, and contrast it with what it has become.

I was inspired to create this series by my study of the history of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as the narrative poetry of the Japanese Buddhist hermit Kamo-no-Chomei. As the author writes: “People die and are born / Whence they come / And where they go, / I do not know. / Nor do I understand / the transitory homes they build.” This series is suffused by my own personal discomfort with settler culture and “the transitory homes they build.” This discomfort is complicated by the fact that as a middle-class Caucasian Canadian born person, I am of it, and not above it. I hint at this complex discomfort through the repeated representation of industrial and residential growth: in-progress construction sites, powerlines, hammerhead cranes, and oil derrick pumps. Finally, “Unsettled” is strongly informed by the “nature as a public dumpster” art of Kim Dorland, and the colonially mindful work of Kent Monkman.