Colette Urban: "Recalling Belvedere" at Museum of London

Friday, 30 June 2006 11:03

London - The development of Recalling Belvedere has been guided by Canadian artist Colette Urban’s interest in exploring the landscape, heritage and culture of Newfoundland.  Rooted in her response to this physical location, Recalling Belvedere reflects Urban’s interest in how memory can recall or reconstruct an idealized notion of place.

Central to the exhibition is the performance Belvedere.  Filmed at the Bowmanville Zoo in Bowmanville, Ontario, the performance is represented in the exhibition as a projection on the inside walls of a portable tent-like fabric enclosure.  In Belvedere, Urban rides an elephant.  On her head and covering her face she wears a replica of the house in Meadows, Newfoundland. Draping over her shoulders and body is a brocade cape adorned with ornamental floral beadwork.  From this beaded layer, a second elaborately decorated costume covers the body of the elephant.  Stitched together from various fabrics and textiles in such a way to resemble the rugged landscape of Newfoundland, in particular, the specific landscape surrounding the house in Meadows, the costume resembles a caparison worn by elephants in ceremonial parades.

The elephant may seem like a peculiar addition to remembering the Newfoundland landscape.  For Urban, however, this unlikely character enriches the project in many ways – its inherent and acquired characteristics illustrate her desire to understand this place and her longing for this landscape.  The performance is "a representation of the exotic, gentle and majestic spectacle of my belvedere," says Urban, inasmuch as it is a representation of the exotic, gentle and majestic spectacle of the elephant.  The elephant is used as a metaphor to represent the physical scale of the island and its particular qualities.  The elephant’s large scale, like the island of Newfoundland, demands attention.  Its matriarchal social structure, its extended community, and its prodigious memory serve as reminders that Newfoundland was once a proud matriarchal society before European exploration and colonization.

Urban exposes the diverse cultural use of the elephant image in an ever-growing collection of elephant paraphernalia – a collection that has no visible end and one that highlights the proliferation of the elephant image in its myriad of interpretations.  In books, photographs, videotapes, clothing, souvenirs, knick-knacks and stories, the elephant carries a wealth of symbolic and historical references, and reminders.

Known throughout Canada for both her performance and installation works, Urban has been performing and exhibiting both in Canada and abroad since the early 1980s.  Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including, FUSE, Art in America, Vie des arts, and Backflash.  Urban lives in London, Ontario, and works as an associate professor in the Visual Arts Department at The University of Western Ontario.  Guest Curator: Colleen O’Neill. Exhibition July 1 - October 22.

Visit Museum of London at : http://www.molg.org.uk/english/