13 mai 2008, Espace mobile, Vox, Montréal
Elizabeth SIMCOE, View near Montreal. ca. 1792. Watercolour. Archives of Ontario, Simcoe Family Fonds, F47. Reference code F47-11-1-0-60. (http://www.archives.gov.on.ca Accessed 10 May 2008 ) Traded for a critical analysis.
Denis Longchamps is doing his PhD in Art History on the sketchbook imagery of Elizabeth Simcoe (1762-1850). He is arguing that the sketches she made all along her journey through Upper and Lower Canada in the 18th century were done in order to further the colonialist project of her husband, Lieutenant Governor John Simcoe. Denis’ research has been an integral part of the development of this phase of Pictorial Propaganda in the Quartier des spectacles. My research has been based on his astonishing indexing of all of her sketches among disparate collections on Canada and Europe, as well as his scholarly view of her work as colonialist propaganda.
Denis has offered to make a critical analysis of Pictorial Propaganda (as it reproduces the original watercolours of Elizabeth Simcoe) within the context of his own PhD research.
Someone told me once that we are all victims of colonialism.
The short answer is, if you read her diary, you will see that Mrs Simcoe had an extremely complex but ultimately patronizing attitude towards aboriginal peoples and their cultures. It is subtly expressed, but it is there. Despite her fluency in multiple languages, she also had a similar attitude towards her francophone friends and acquaintances and the Habitants in Québec. We will have to await Denis’ thesis for the long answer.
I do feel that we don’t pay enough attention to aboriginal peoples, especially here in Québec where we are distracted by divisions over language and the ensuing repercussions. When there is so much hype around declining birthrates and the loss of culture, it is interesting to note that between 1996 and 2006, the Aboriginal population grew by 45%, compared with 8% for the non-Aboriginal population (Statistics Canada). For me, the question is what kind of autonomy, choices and opportunities are available to these kids in our supposedly egalitarian democracy?
Pictorial Propaganda, in a way, is my own struggle to come to terms with a visual language that I can draw direct lineage to through my own cultural background (British). The various aboriginal peoples had their own distinct systems of representation, but I haven’t peeled back the onion layers of time that far yet. And I am not sure that what I found would not be filtered though a lens of the European construct of anthropology. It is inevitable though, when contemplating visual representation of landscape that one would question the idea of land, who occupies it, who is representing it and why. The story of the Conquest is not the same as the story of Turtle Island.
I do draw inspiration from Kent Monkman’s work around similar themes. Although his approach is quite different, he uses landscape painting from a certain time (the Hudson River School) paired with subversive sexual acts to underscore power struggles inherent in 19th century nation building and “manifest destiny.”
In an essay by Robert Houle, I found this passage interesting:
“Even though national identities can be homogenizing and monolithic, the mediation of inclusion and the accommodation of difference can remove the walls of distinctions dividing people by race, creed, and colour – as if two epistemologies, Native American and European, shared a library, this giving hope that cultural diversity and multiculturalism, the currency of globalization, will eventually bridge the gap between recognition and identity.” – Robert Houle, “Creating Space Within a National Identity” in “Vision, Space, Desire : Global Perspectives and Cultural Hybridity” (Washington, DC : National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 2006), 124
A bit utopian perhaps, but then, I am doing this project out of a desperate hope that there is a better way than the one we are currently pursuing.
since starting my own research into canada’s colonial history/present i have been noticing the word colonial turns up everywhere. and, as i am wanting to understand/situate myself somewhere within this history/present, i have begun wondering about the distinction between the individual and the community. meaning in this context i am wondering if, for example, elizabeth simcoe can be said to engage in colonialist propaganda, or if she can be said to have a self-interest in the career of her husband? if her husband had been a paper-maker could her use of paper be said to be in the interest of cotton growers?(or whatever material her husband used to produce paper…) and did the first communities here in canada perceive themselves as colonialists (meaning the “superior” society with the intention to “save, dominate, or extinguish” the people’s who were already here) or was this mainly the domain of the religions and the government. and today? how do we/i perceive myself vis-a-vis the ongoing domination of the first nations? surely now, at this point in history, we, the “average” canadian can have an understanding of how our actions continue to undermine and colonialize the first nation communities. but the people who first started the “project” i am wondering if they had any idea of how destructive to the first communities their presence would become. but the thing is now we all do know, both the colonizer and the colonized. and yet the colonial project is still engaging in the destruction. that for me is the part that doesn’t fit. for surely the illusion about saving or civilizing anyone has been debunked and yet lands, and customs and languages continue to be violated. so now what do we do?