Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper explores a new collaboration between visual artist Ben Davis and Professor of Criminal Justice Kevin Walby. Although Davis and Walby investigate land using different disciplinary lenses and tools, both of their research centers on issues of justice and addresses ideas of layering. At the core of Davis’s practice is an understanding of land as text, using the idea of a ‘palimpsest’ - an overwritten paper document with partially occluded layers of older text, which then gradually show through beneath the newer writing. Walby’s research, exploring decommissioned industrial sites through the lenses of social and environmental justice, suggests that there is something about place that eludes visual methods, especially photography, which is consistent with ‘counter-visual’ analysis - examining what is communicated through the invisible, as opposed to focusing on readily apparent narratives. This paper examines the rationale for the collaboration, and the process by which Davis is developing new work from Walby’s research into Uranium City, Saskatchewan - a decommissioned war industry site. Walby’s data includes photographs, audio recordings of interviews, maps, and other documents, which will be integrated into a series of pieces that bring to light the contradictions behind the seemingly benign landscapes depicted in Walby’s photographs and explore the tension between appearance and reality, troubling reliance on photographic representation alone. The paper concludes by discussing how this project might open up a more dialogical space for engagement with an audience other than the academy to highlight and explore issues centered on land, environment, contamination, and justice.