New Monuments/Old Foundations (2015)
New Monuments/Old Foundations considers the history of a site once known as Six-Mile Mill; a long abandoned saw-mill near Kamloops, BC, which is curiously absent from official historical records. My only proof was an assurance from a friend that it “had First Nations employees, among them [his] Pipe Carrier Mentor, Ed Bennett, now passed on”. This place bares little evidence of industrial activity – just an overgrown trench, a few broken foundations, and some metal tools buried in the land.
Over several days, I painstakingly levigated the concrete foundations, bringing them to a reflective finish more akin to a headstone or contemporary loft, than a typical ruin site, complicating the usual narratives of this type of site (whether one views it as blight or beautiful decay). It is in an isolated, rarely reached location, and as such, can never function as a public commemoration. Through this excavation, the ghosts of labour are brought to the surface, yet hidden in the process.
The practice of levigating has been used for two centuries to prepare lithography stones. It is often seen by printmakers to exemplify the kind of behind-the-scenes, labour intensive processes that are central to our practice.
Old Monuments/New Foundations was produced with the support of Kamloops Art Gallery and Canada Council for the Arts
Selected Excerpts: 5:00 of 59:00
Video: Devon Lindsay
New Monuments/Old Foundations (video still), industrial ruins, levigator, carborundum, 2015.
Video: Devon Lindsay
Research into industrial remains six miles north of Kamloops, photolithograph on newsprint (printed with ferric chloride pigment), 2015.
Photo: Devon Lindsay
Photo: Devon Lindsay
Photo: Devon Lindsay
Photo: Devon Lindsay
Site Detail (six miles north of Kamloops, BC)