Recreation: Queen Elizabeth Park

description

Queen Elizebeth Park

Vancouver, Canada

The installation Recreation includes 10 independent audio channels spread around the old quarry in Queen Elizabeth Park, Vancouver. Each of the audio channels is a separate soundscape composition referencing to the various utilities of the site since colonization. These compositions are generated by Audio Metaphor from excerpts of text related to the moments in time. Below is the artist statement and excepts from the 10 texts.

The early colonization of Vancouver saw Little Mountain owned by CPR who blasted and dug for its basalt. Those operations closed in 1911 and the land was later sold to the City of Vancouver who wanted it for the towns water reservoirs. That moment also signified a shift in the utility of Little Mountain toward beautification and recreation. Around that time, the BC Tulip Association envisaged turning the derelict quarry into a garden sunken into the earth, among the shapes of stones and bones.

beginning re-creation is a spatialized sound composition temporarily inhabiting the mound to the right in the quarry. As it is walked around, one encounters a composition referencing the states and utilities of the locale against the background of the quarry.

1. quarry digging explosions men working (digging quarry)
2. digging scratching quarry removal (the shapes of stones and bones )
3. indecision wasteland crows (garbage dump crows rubbish)
4. re-emergence of nature (nature shovel raven)
5. building the garden (spring garden)
6. children playing in the garden (childrens playground garden)
7. tourism garden (Vancouver tourist seaside)
8. big city recreation (a city in the bush frogs)
9. reservoir fountain
10. reservoir fountain rain Vancouver