@ Denis Bouvier

This shot was taken from a shop facing Hamilton St. in the atrium of the Vancouver Public Library. The colour of actual trees contrasts with the black and white image adding to the mystery of the photo’s subject matter.

It’s the current exhibit on The Wall, a public art initiative reflecting the city’s “built environment” or manmade space in which people live, work and recreate. It’s a collaboration between CBC, its neighbour JJ bean and the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. The space is 38 by 29 feet of CBC wall at the CBC Plaza on Hamilton St. The exhibit is an enlarged 4 by 5 inch photographic negative of a production still from the 1957 CBC television drama Room at the Roxy. It depicts a mother about to enter a run-down hotel in search of her drug-addicted son, as relevant today as in 1957.

The enlargement and placement of the image on The Wall creates an artistic perspective of something intended as an archival document. Bouvier’s picture furthers that artistic perspective, illustrative of one of the myriad ways the public can view art.

The photographer of the still was Alvin Armstrong who worked at CBC from 1954 to 1973. The exhibit was curated by CBC media librarian Christine Hagemoen.

Don Richardson