Résumés
In the last 50 years, the circumpolar world has moved from the periphery to the centre of international policy and public culture. This paper explores how art and anthropology can work in parallel to create visual and textual representations that ‘picture the north’ as heterogeneous, complex, and unfolding rather than reproducing polarising views of the arctic as a place of extreme fragility or boundless opportunity. It describes a multimodal installation, Mackenzie Place, that is the outcome of a decade-long engagement between an anthropologist and photographer. Mackenzie Place is a series of still and moving images that provide an in-depth study of a lone high-rise residential tower in Hay River, Northwest Territories –a multi-ethnic town north of the 60th parallel in Canada. We use the term “parallel play” to describe our method of working alongside each other in generative, but not necessarily collaborative, ways. Rather than attempting to have our disciplinary, personal, and aesthetic commitments converge into a coherent singular effort, we maintained proximity around a shared visual/ethnographic anchor to explore what new media may ‘say’, or make say-able, about northern life worlds.
Au cours des 50 dernières années, le monde circumpolaire est passé de la périphérie au centre de la politique internationale et de la culture publique. Cet article entend explorer la manière dont l’art et l’anthropologie peuvent travailler en parallèle afin de créer des représentations visuelles et textuelles qui « dépeignent le Nord » comme hétérogène, complexe et en évolution, plutôt que de reproduire des visions polarisées de l’Arctique comme lieu d’extrême fragilité ou de potentialités infinies. Il décrit une installation multimodale, Mackenzie Place, le résultat d’un dialogue de 10 ans entre une anthropologue et un photographe. Mackenzie Place est une série d’images statiques et animées qui fournit une étude approfondie d’une tour résidentielle isolée à Hay River, dans les Territoires du Nord-Ouest du Canada – une ville multiethnique située au nord du 60e parallèle. Nous utilisons l’expression « jeu parallèle » pour désigner notre méthode de travail en parallèle, avec des éléments génératifs plutôt que proprement collaboratifs. Plutôt que d’essayer de faire converger nos engagements disciplinaires, personnels et esthétiques en un effort singulier cohérent, nous avons maintenu une proximité autour d’un ancrage visuel/ethnographique partagé afin d’explorer ce que les nouveaux médias peuvent « dire », ou rendre « dicible », des mondes de la vie nordique.
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Plan
Introduction
Mackenzie Place: Building relationships
Produced in parallel
From ‛overlays’ to exhibition
Lindsay Bell, the anthropologist, in her words
Jesse Colin Jackson, the artist, in his words
Conclusion
Aperçu du début du texte
Introduction
In the last fifty years, the Arctic has moved from the periphery to the centre of debates in international policy and public culture (Cavell 2002). While the trope of a “New North” is not new (Stuhl 2013), intensive state policy realignments, global interest in northern resources, climate change debates, questions of arctic sovereignty, and legacies of colonialism have drawn national attention northwards (Byers 2009; Grant 2010; Hanrahan 2017; Stuhl 2016; Todd 2016, Tuck 2014). Public attention and understanding of political and social concerns regarding “the North” are mediated by visual information (Davidson 2023; Weber & Shields 2011; Bloom 2022). While this may have long been the case (explorer’s maps, early photographs), the diversity and quantities of visual media made in or about the North have multiplied in the 21st century.
More than simply communicating sets of facts about a region, the production and circulation of visual data (maps, satellite images, graphs, p...
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Référence papier
Lindsay Bell et Jesse Colin Jackson, « Parallel play: Experiments in picturing the near Arctic », Civilisations, 72 | 2023, 99-116.
Référence électronique
Lindsay Bell et Jesse Colin Jackson, « Parallel play: Experiments in picturing the near Arctic », Civilisations [En ligne], 72 | 2023, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2027, consulté le 10 février 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/civilisations/7664 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12t97
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Auteurs
Sociocultural and linguist anthropologist specialising in the political-economic dimensions of aspiration with a regional focus in Artic Canada and North America more broadly. She is assistant professor at Western University (Canada). Her research program focuses on the hopes people and institutions have for their futures and how those ideas are put into practice and experienced. She works in a wide range of contexts, from arctic diamond mining to synthetic gemstone production, to various medicalised settings. Her book, Under pressure: Diamond mining and everyday life in Northern Canada was published by the University of Toronto Press (2023) | Western University, Department of anthropology, Social Science Centre, Rm.3326, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7 — Lindsay.bell[at]uwo.ca
Associate professor of electronic art & design at the University of California, Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts, where he also serves as associate dean ‘Research and Innovation’ and executive director of the Beall Center for Art + Technology. He is a Canadian artist and designer based in Southern California. He explores the architectures we construct—from buildings to landscapes to virtual worlds—through objects and images made with digital visualisation and fabrication technologies. His interactive Marching Cubes performances and installations (2016-present) have been featured in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Mexico City, Stockholm, and Tehran) | University of California, Irvine, Department of Art, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, 4000 Mesa road, Irvine, CA 92697-2775, USA — j.c.jackson[at]uci.edu
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