Photo: Noël Bégin, courtesy of the artist
In Untunnelling Vision (2020), a photography and video installation, viewers are immersed in an apocalyptic landscape. The Canadian Armed Forces leased some of the land of the Tsuut’ina Nation and contaminated it while conducting “war games” over a ninety-year period. This same land was later used as the backdrop for the Canadian war film Passchendaele (2008). The movie’s producer hoped to turn the movie set — an eclectic set of ruins — into a tourist destination, which never materialized. In a restorative gesture, the Korea-born and Vancouver-based artist Jin-me Yoon returns to this eerie site and performs with it. Alternately mourning, walking, and dancing, Yoon — dressed as the trickster figure Rubble — haunts the site, casting light on the absurdity of the destruction and non-respect of Indigenous lands by uninvited settler guests.
