Œuvre d'art public
Domicile (Neighbourhood Series)
Centre-ville. Panneaux placés dans les fenêtres.
Affiches lumineuses installées dans des panneaux-réclame
[panneau 1]
Common morning activities accom-
plished within a few seconds : turn off the
tap, open the curtains, take off the
kettle, pour the water, open the fridge,
pour the milk, replace the carton, close
the fridge, close the bathroom door.
Once inner adhesions give way,
Common motions break down, are
Significant tasks in themselves.
The man chased the woman out onto
the deck. He flailed at her with a long
plank of wood; she held her own with a
metal coat rack.
The deck doors are constantly left
open. Often he has his son or daughter
down on the living room floor while he
pummels and kicks them, screaming
hoarsely. Or else the woman is chasing
them with a cooking pot. Squalls of
words swirl about them.
[panneau 2]
Although small and plain, the backyard
is used to its fullest capacity. Many
nights in summer, the whole family sleeps
outside, the man, the woman, the three
teenaged sons, the young daughter. Each
has their own cot, blankets and sheets.
An electric alarm on an extension cord
wakes them up for work.
Two motions deliberated carefully and
then she must sit down, exhausted, beside
the window. She can just see the heads
of two people in another house carrying
on a conversation. Nodding civilly back
and forth. Normality.
[panneau 3]
The law required them to build a two
car garage and put in a driveway. This
left little space for a garden. The week
before they moved in, the grandmother,
old and tiny, almost doubled over, built
up a garden in the driveway. They parked
their car on the street.
Several times each year, the young girl
can be heard screaming, over and over,
“Why don’t you just kill me you bastard,
oh I want to die, I want to die”. When
the police come, the mother and daughter
are helped out of the house and they
drive away.
Recently the young girl came home
from the hospital with a baby. The
stepfather has since bought a new car
and dresses more respectably.
[panneau 4]
Last year they tried to get rid of the son,
dangerously full grown now and as sour
as the father, by paying his way back to
the homeland. He came back after a few
months; no change.
This was in mid-November and she had
a miraculous garden of giant bok choy
and cabbage under plastic. She tended
it every day; with slow, precise move-
ments, she would lift the plastic, the
wind blowing, then prune and weed and
water. Meanwhile the other houses’
legitimate garden spaces lay fallow, open
to the winter weather.
Absence d’échange entre résidents urbains; hypocrisie des quartiers résidentiels; dislocation et isolation entre voisins; le domicile comme abri de la sphère urbaine et publique
Domicile (Neighbourhood Series). Épreuve sur plexiglas, sapin, appareillages fluorescents, peinture. Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, 1988.
Exposition «Urban Subjects» 26 sep-15 oct 1988.