A Model for Exploring Anyville: Using Dialogical Collaboration to Create Art about Place

Transnational art trends bring diverse compass points into dialogue through international exhibitions and the internet; some artists are examining the aesthetic norms and values of their own locales to identify questions of global significance. At the University of Calgary, Canada, two art professors, with a writer from London, UK, are examining what defines regional place as a catalyst for contemporary art making. Our model derives from Western Canadian landscape, experienced through Hollywood movies such as "Superman," "The Assassination of Jesse James," and "Doctor Zhivago" but identified as other than its actual location. The Canadian prairies are an enormous stage-set on which Hollywood tells its stories. Western Canadian identity is buried under celluloid; our work is to uncover what is authentic. The purpose of this paper is to build a model for the analysis of place that can be applied by artists from "anyville" searching for authentic regional identity. Our model is dialogical and collaborative; we work with twelve other visual artists to create thematic artworks led by questions about place and landscape. These include: What forces separate/connect us to place? How do we recreate place to meet our needs? What are the cyclical patterns that shape the region? Who are we, beyond Hollywood's image? What forms our boundaries; how do they affect us? and What role does our unique geography play? The work will be published in an artist book, "Art- Book," and exhibited in a touring exhibition, creating a lexicon for the Western Canadian landscape genre. This model can be applied to artist collectives addressing landscape in far-flung locations across the globe. Just as with "ArtBook," the dialogue that builds the work is enriched by the diversity of the artists' contexts. Through telematics, artists from anywhere in the world can collaborate, allowing a regional investigation to become a global inquiry.