The Heritage Village: Sifting through Immaterial Histories of Land
Abstract
This paper considers the immaterial aspects of the history of land as way to reimagine heritage. Through the heritage village – that imagined, artificial, and curated representation of history with very particular kinds of material iterations and legacies of the past – we consider the immaterial memories and histories that have becomes absent from the staging and design of heritage as collective history. We consider the way that these omissions function in the imagination of the present and future by turning to the site-specific contemporary art exhibition Land/Slide Possible Futures (2013). Located on the site of Markham Museum heritage village in Ontario, Canada, this expansive project reveals the imbricated histories of the rise of the heritage village and that of the suburb. Turning in particular to Duke & Battesby’s Always Popular, Never Cool and Terrance Houle’s There’s Things That Even a Drunk Will Never Forget, we argue for the heritage village as a lieu de mémoire, where memories are continuously unearthed, revealed, and imagined, and where artists transform archival collections and historical architectures into surreal and uncanny encounters with those pasts that are immaterial and absent from the facades of heritage.
Author Biography
Aleksandra Kaminska
Aleksandra Kaminska is a Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, where she is investigating emerging nano-media technologies in digital media, the arts and creative communities. She is also a Research Associate at Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology at York University, Toronto, where she is on a team developing a network of audio-visual archives across Canada. Dr. Kaminska’s research explores interdisciplinary inquiry and collaboration between media scholars, artists and scientists, and engages with media materialities, aesthetics, ecologies, and infrastructures. She also develops research and projects at the intersection of media theory, art and civic culture. Her first book, Polish Media Art in an Expanded Field is forthcoming from Intellect Press. www.aleksandrakaminska.com
Janine Marchessault
Janine Marchessault is the Director of Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology at York University, Toronto. She is a public art curator, professor of cinema and media studies, and co-founder of the Future Cinema Lab. Through her creative work and research, combining urban planning, public art and the media, she aims to interpret and illustrate the city and urban sustainability issues. As co-director of the Visible City Project + Archive and member of the not-for-profit collective Public Access, Dr. Marchessault works with artists, designers, municipal governments and community stakeholders to investigate new models of public art and the roles artists play in shaping the urban experience. Large-scale collaborative projects include The Leona Drive Project (2009), Museum for the End of the World (2012) and Land/Slide: Possible Futures. She was awarded a Trudeau Fellowship in 2012.