L I N H LY
THE SPACES BETWEEN US
CALGARY
H A L I FA X
TORONTO
VANCOUVER
ESSAY & BIOS
T H E S PA C E S B E T W E E N U S
Linh Ly clearly does not have a future as a real estate photographer. In what appears to be an error in the film advancement, the compositions of her series of suburban photographs are consistently skewed so that rather than centering on the houses themselves, the images are trained on the peripheral corridors that separate each housing unit. These photos fail to impart any practical information in regards to the value about the property or house to prospective buyers. This error is in fact a conscious strategy by Ly to trouble the conventional vocabulary of the urban experience. ‘The Spaces Between Us’ is an investigation of the idea of universal suburbia. Beginning with Calgary, Ly sought to document the space in-between houses in areas of mass habitation. Expanding her study to Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax, she began to reflect the similarities and distinctions in the way these communities organized their space. Houses represent a formalized identity, which through serves to reflect class and stature. Freestanding structures suggest a desirable degree of status,
whereas the close quarters of apartment dwellings occupy a lower stature within our social hierarchy. In the catalogue for the exhibition ‘Some Detached Houses’, Curator Bill Jeffries notes that “the house, as a category, is an intermediate region between that of the individual, whether alienated or integrated, and the socioarchitectural totality represented by the ongoing transformation of building materials into lapidary structures that resemble a kind of 1 crystal growth on the earth's surface.” Within the prefabricated suburban communities that now encircle a number of cities such as Calgary and Vancouver, the geographic and urban experience is abstracted but also fully scripted. Suggestions of environmental context, community, and history are treated as prefabricated aesthetic flourishes (courtesy the developers) to structures whose true purpose is to signify individual identity and status. These in between spaces serve as borders between hermetically sealed units. Ly’s approach to her subject is closely aligned with that of photo-conceptualists such as Roy Arden and Dan Graham, who lay bare the economic operations of the built environment. Equally critical for her is the work of Lynne Cohen and Rachel Whiteread. In particular, Whiteread's use of negative space as a sculptural element provided Ly the initial inspiration to articulate these spaces in her work. Organized in a grid orientation, the images suggest a typology. Ly makes a case for its inclusion within the lexicon of our urban experience. What we notice is that these spaces are occupied either by natural decorative elements (trees, bushes and shrubs), or clear divisions such as fences or laneways.
Ly also draws parallels to apartment buildings, in which case parking lots (located behind the outward face of the building) Although they are for the most part open spaces, there is no doubt that these areas are private property and as such inaccessible to us, unless transgressed in order to take a short cut or to commit a crime.
at a strictly formalized relationship. Ly makes no pronouncements with her work, she doesn’t ask us to get along better with our neighbours. Instead, her images give us an opportunity to look more critically at the borders we maintain. 1
Bill Jeffries, “Introduction in Some Detached Houses”, ed Bill Jeffries, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver 1990 p.9
Photographed from the sidewalk or occasionally the road, Ly’s images reference a pedestrian vantage point into these corridors. The images reveal the subtle negotiations that take place to assert identity, either through alienation or integration. These are sites of negotiation between individual identities. While absent of people, the photographs nonetheless carry forward Ly’s interest in the relationship of individuals within the urban environment. I’m reminded of the occasionally volatile relationship my parents had with their new neighbours throughout the summer and fall of 1999. Having replaced the original house with one of their own design, the new residents of this postwar inner city neighborhood decided that the rough pine fence that my father had built didn’t properly suit the new aesthetic of their property. In its place, an imposing concrete structure was built, which hid from view the extended driveway that traveled the whole of the half-acre property. In response, my parents put in a garden along the course of the wall to reassert a sense of their identity on their side of the wall. A contradiction exists within suburbia, where the desire to be part of a community is joined with the desire for privacy and pronounced individualism. What results is an unspoken (although clearly visible) contract that keeps interactions between neighbors
L I N H LY
T H E S PA C E S B E T W E E N U S
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Linh Ly Tomas Jonsson D E S I G N : COMBINE DESIGN P R I N T I N G : McAra Printing ESSAY:
0-9733074-0-4 © 2003 Linh Ly photography ISBN
is an artist, writer and independant curator based in the inner cities of Calgary and London, Ontario.
TO M A S J O N SS O N
is a photographic artist living in Calgary. ‘The Spaces Between Us’ is her first photo-book.
L I N H LY
Thanks to Brent Watson, Arthur Nishimura, Tomas Jonsson, C O M B I N E D E S I G N and the Canada Council for their support.