Touring Home From Away

1998, series of 9 diptychs (recto and verso)), black anodized double-sided lightboxes with ilfochrome translucent prints with polyester overlam, 66 x 81 x 13 cm (26 x 32 x 5.1 in) each

The nine diptychs comprising Touring Home From Away are presented in double-sided lightboxes that resemble advertising panels. Created in Prince Edward Island, whose economy is based mainly on agriculture and tourism, the images create an entwined narrative that explores not only the island’s iconic sites and features—the house of the main fictional character in the novel Anne of Green Gables, a lighthouse, a potato field with its furrows of red earth—but also generic, everyday places: a convenience store, a Tim Hortons, an amusement park, and a superstore. The combination of these two types of imagery, staged photographs and imitations of family snapshots, undermines the idyllic portrait promoted by the tourism industry. By presenting the works recto-verso, the artist literally shows both sides of the images, playing on reversal to disrupt the narrative and reveal what often remains unseen.

Installation view of Touring Home From Away, 1998, Musée d’art de Joliette (2019). Photo: Paul Litherland

Detail of Touring Home From Away, 1998, 1 of 9 diptychs (recto)

Detail of Touring Home From Away, 1998, 1 of 9 diptychs (verso)

Detail of Touring Home From Away, 1998, 1 of 9 diptychs (recto)

Detail of Touring Home From Away, 1998, 1 of 9 diptychs (verso)

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