Parks Project Communes with Nature

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In the early 1990s, Vancouver artist Rebecca Belmore travelled the country with a giant megaphone so people could voice their protests to the land.

Now, Belmore has created a large metal cone that allows participants to hear, rather than to address, the land and its waterways. Wave Sound can be found throughout the summer at three national parks – Banff in Alberta, Pukaskwa in Ontario and Gros Morne in Newfoundland – as part of the Landmarks 2017 art initiative, a signature Canada 150 project at 20 national parks and historic sites. Many of the artworks, like Belmore’s, offer opportunities to commune in new ways with this chunk of Earth we call Canada.

Landmarks 2017 includes 10 projects by contemporary artists, along with initiatives by students at 16 universities. Many projects are collaborations with residents of a local community and many take an indigenous perspective. An example is Weaving Voices by artists Chris Clarke and Bo Yeung at the Klondike National Historic Sites. Living willow installations relay voices from the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation offering their view of the Yukon gold rush. Most projects, even ephemeral land art, will endure in films, documents, audio recordings and displays elsewhere beyond the official exhibition dates of June 10 to June 25.

Partners in Art, a non-profit, Toronto-based organization, initiated Landmarks. Several universities, arts organizations, corporate sponsors and a $2-million federal grant added fuel. The goal, says project chair Elske Kofman, is to use art as a tool to generate a discussion about “who we are and who we aspire to be as a country.” Curators are David Diviney, Ariella Pahlke, Melinda Spooner, Véronique Leblanc, Natalia Lebedinskaia, Kathleen Ritter and Tania Willard.

Among the projects:

  • In Stitching My Landscape, artist Maureen Gruben and residents of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., drilled more than 100 holes along a channel surrounding the Ibyuq Pingo (a permanent, giant ice dome) at the Pingo Canadian Landmark and joined the holes with red broadcloth in a nod to traditional drum-dancing clothing.
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Maureen Gruben, "Stitching My Landscape," 2017

Maureen Gruben, "Stitching My Landscape," 2017

installation on a section of the ice road outside Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., on March 9, 2017, photo by Kyra Kordoski

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Maureen Gruben prepares her materials for "Stitching My Landscape" on a section of the ice road outside Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T. on March 9, 2017

Maureen Gruben prepares her materials for "Stitching My Landscape" on a section of the ice road outside Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T. on March 9, 2017

photo by Kyra Kordoski

  • Yukon artist Jeneen Frei Njootli created Being Skidoo, decorations for snowmobiles akin to traditional ornately beaded regalia for sled dogs. Her work is at Yukon’s Vuntut National Park.
  • Michael Belmore’s permanent project, Coalescence, replicates the boundaries of an Ice Age glacier. The Ontario artist hauled boulders decorated with copper insets from Churchill to four sites, including The Forks in Winnipeg and Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan.
  • Long View is a series of self-portrait post cards exploring identity by Vancouver artist Jin-me Yoon at the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.