Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere


From 2005 to 2007, I focused on the production of an extensive body of work entitled Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. This project incorporates various media to reveal issues surrounding landscape development, cultural diversity, and mediated experience within contemporary suburban environments. Of particular interest are the relationships between perception and representation, and reality and imagination within this often generalized, seemingly homogenous context.


Background:

As a child, I grew-up in a small fishing village in British Columbia, Canada. This village is located around an inlet of the Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by mountains and temperate rain forests. During this period of time, my whole understanding of the world was based upon this environment. However, at the age of 11, my family relocated to Brampton, Ontario – one of the many suburbs comprising the Greater Toronto Region. Upon entering this new environment, I was both mesmerized and shocked to find that identical houses, strip malls, and a multitude of cars had replaced the ocean, mountains, and forests of my previous home.

On the surface, Brampton seems to embrace all of stereotypical aspects commonly associated with American and Canadian suburban environments. Having said this, the longer I lived in this region, the more acutely aware I became of the complexities, contradictions, and differences between contemporary suburban environments and those of the past. Unlike the “white flight” era of suburban growth, populations representing cultural diversity increasingly inhabit and characterize these environments. With Brampton belonging to the one of the most culturally diverse and fastest growing regions in all of North America, it became the perfect location for beginning to rethink the ways in which we understand suburbia. Rather than reiterating stereotypes, the works comprising Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere seek to locate points of difference and transformation within this context. 

Individual Works:

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is comprised of four interrelated bodies of work: Drive By, Street Signs, Intersections, and This Could Be Anywhere, This Could Be Everywhere.

To view individual projects, please use the portfolio links on the left of the screen.


Installation Images


Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux



Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux



Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux



Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux



Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux



Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux



Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux



Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux



Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux



Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Installation View)
Centre Des Artes Actuels Skol, Montreal, QC.
Photo Credit: Guy L'heureux