Canadian Music Centre – BC Region and Vancouver New Music present

At the Edge of Wilderness
A video installation about ghost towns in British Columbia created by composer Hildegard Westerkamp and photographer Florence Debeugny

Opening reception September 26, 2014; 5-7PM
Cellist Peggy Lee will perform excerpts of Hildegard Westerkamp’s Liebes-Lied/Love Song at the opening reception. Hear the full piece at Sonic Topographies on October 16.
September 29 – October 17, 2014; Monday to Friday 9AM to 5PM – HELD OVER TO OCTOBER 21

Canadian Music Centre (837 Davie Street)
Free

When resource industry moves into British Columbia’s landscapes, industrial sites and company towns are cut into the wilderness. The edge between wilderness and such a new place is traditionally knife sharp like the edge between life and a stabbing death. Poison is released into the environment by the violent penetration of industry. Once resources are drained the company moves away leaving its huge, filthy footprints behind, leaving open gaps in mountains and relying on natural processes to absorb the junkheaps, trailings, the waste. Natural rhythms and movements eventually soften the edges, transforming an abandoned industrial site into mysterious rusty shapes and collapsed wooden structures overgrown by moss, weeds, shrubs, and trees. A once noisy, bustling place becomes a quiet ghosttown full of memories. An old industry becomes artifact and lies there like a toothless monster of the past.

Through images and sounds gathered in various ghosttowns of the Canadian province British Columbia during Spring and Summer of 2000, At the Edge of Wilderness explores a strange moment of excitement and magic, discovery and adventure, the moment when the contemporary visitor encounters an abandoned industrial site. This moment also contains questions and stories about human industrial activities of the past and present; or a sense of the spirits and ghosts still hovering among the skeletal remains while nature is gradually reclaiming its place. It is as if visitor and place are taking a deep breath together during this encounter, convalescing from injury, contemplating the edge where junk and artifact, destruction and new growth, noise and quiet meet; where perceptions of a shameful past in need of clean–up collide with feelings of pride towards a heritage worth preserving.

The visitor can feel the presence of past human activity and exploration, much as one senses the energy of early civilizations amongst ancient ruins. With one difference: considering that British Columbia’s landscape and its original native habitations make up the ancient history of this continent, these ghost towns represent the ruins of a comparatively recent past, and are considerably more transient in their loose wooden and metal construction. At the Edge of Wilderness has captured in image and sound the traces of this recent drama between civilization and nature—a drama that has deeply marked our natural and human geography in British Columbia as well as in other parts of the world.

Project Sites:

• The Lower Mainland: Harrison Mills and Carnarvon, Mount Sheer (near Britannia Beach).
• The Lillooet Region: Brandywine, Bralorne, Bradian Prairies and Pioneer.
• The West Kootenays: Nashton, Manganese mine,Whitewater Deep mine, Iron Hand mine, Retallack, Zincton, Rambler, Sandon, Cody, Camp Galilea, Roseberry, Lardeau, Marblehead, Marblehead Quarry, Poplar Creek, Gerrard.
• The Similkameen: Blakeburn mine and Granite City (Coalmont).

Thanks: At the Edge of Wilderness was commissioned by the Western Front Society with the assistance of the Canada Council. In addition we would like to thank the following people for their various ways of assisting us in creating this piece: Peter Grant for lending us his VW Van and for being generally supportive, Leah Seaman and Brian Terry for their cabin., Jessie and David Herreshoff near Kaslo for letting us recharge our equipment batteries while in the field, Norbert Ruebsaat for introducing Hildegard to ghosttowns many years ago, and Ray Knudsen from Britannia Beach who guided Florence to the site of Mount Sheer. Originally commissioned by the Western Front Society in Vancouver for the group show Industrial Ear, September 8-16, 2000. In 2013, the original format for 5 slide projectors and stereo soundtrack was converted into a digital multi image video installation by film editor Sonja Ruebsaat. Photo by Florence Debeugny.

Presented in association with CMC BC Creative Hub.
Presented as part of Culture Days.