Description
The World Upside Down, Le monde a l'envers is an art exhibition catalogue published in 2008 by the Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff. The world upside down is one in which the symbolic order is turned on its head. It is a world visualized by artists where killer rabbits hunt humans and Superman is a hero of the Soviet Union. It is the Planet of the Apes and a planet where British aristocrats lose their heads when they find themselves dressed in African fabrics. In each inversion an artist turns a hierarchical dichotomy on its head, but in most cases the dichotomy itself doesn't survive the trip. It breaks down under the strain of its own absurdity and for a moment we are liberated from its tyranny through this very particular form of social satire. This exhibition also extends out into public spaces to include a commissioned billboard and bus project by Terrance Houle (with Jarusha Brown) who use photography and video to parody the complexities of contemporary Aboriginal identity. In his Urban Indian Series, Houle depicts himself going about the tasks of daily life -- shopping for groceries, working at the office -- while dressed in his powwow regalia, highlighting the perceived but far from actual schism between traditional Indigenous identity and contemporary life.