Decolonization Station

I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which this project took place is the Treaty 7 territory and the traditional territory of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Nakoda (Stoney), and Tsuut'ina.  

“Decolonization Station” is an installation and performance art project that occurred on Saturday, July 1st from 11am - 3pm at the Galt Gardens Park in downtown Lethbridge, AB in front of the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. In this participatory art project, the viewer was asked to engage directly in a dialogue about colonization/decolonization as presented through commercialized images of Canada. This dialogue was realized through active audience participation in the destruction of artworks and ephemera that resulted from an investigative project that I undertook from 2012-2015: The Canada Collection. This investigation involved the collection of mass-produced, household objects, tchotchkes, and souvenirs that present settler-friendly images of white Canada. Most often, objects were collected from secondhand shops and garage sales across Western Canada, the prevailing iconographies presenting a Canadian identity thinly veiled by a facade of friendliness and humour, untamed, majestic wilderness and seemingly quaint imperialism. Additionally, members of the public were invited to bring in items from their own personal collections to safely/effectively dispose of at the “Decolonization Station”. In the destruction of these icons of the colonial version of Canadian identity, it was my hope that there could be the potential for liberation from the continued colonization that they perpetrate. 

As a member of the white/settler, colonizing culture of Canada, I want to acknowledge the privilege that has allowed me to present a project that critiques a system that has benefitted me in this country. It is not my intent to take away or appropriate Indigenous voices on the matter of Decolonization, an Indigenous movement by and for Indigenous people. It is my hope that adding my voice to the conversation can contribute to raising awareness about the effects of the persistant colonialism that we experience in Canada.