Abstract

This thesis examines how "The Post-Colonial Landscape Project" exhibition program contributed to a further understanding of the history of colonialism in Canada. Specifically, it critically engages and analyzes three exhibitions contained within the project: "The Post-Colonial Landscape: A Billboard Exhibition"; "Ruth Cuthand: Location/Dislocation"; and "Christos Dikeakos: Sites & Place Names: Vancouver/Saskatoon." These exhibitions were selected because the works included maintained a visual and theoretical correlation to one another. Discourse analysis is deployed to discuss the theoretical frameworks used by the curators and critics of the exhibitions. At issue in the thesis is the totalizing goal of the colonial project, which is intrinsically tied to European capitalism and seeks to reintegrate and translate all things to laws of profit. An economic order is supplanted over any and all kinds of differing conceptions of order, to translate all modes of production into an end-goal of naturalization and totalization. The colonial project, tied to capitalism, seeks to naturalize itself so that it appears not as a construction, but a natural function and logical extension of the operations of the earth. However, in the context of the exhibition project discussed, I argue the overlying structure engaged by the select exhibitions discussed is representative of an intervention through artistic practice and institutional activism that destabilizes the dominant order. This thesis thus intends to provide the first critical study on "The Post-Colonial Landscape Project" and elaborate on its significance for furthering assessments on the history of 1990s exhibition practices in Canada.