FRINGE ARTS
23
Decolonizing Art at Peripheral Hours and Métèque How Alternative Art Spaces Create a Pathway for Marginalized Voices
Bree Rockbrand
“I
t’s hard to find a physical space where [people] can sit down and talk to each other,” said Victoria Catherine Chan, standing among renovations at Peripheral Hours. The alternative art space, inaugurated by Chan in the fall of 2018, lives in a triplex. It lies tucked in a residential area, between homes in the Chabanel district. “Because [of] the way contemporary spaces are being built, you’re just going there to consume, but there’s no space for conversation or intimacy, and eventually people don’t have these moments of connection and community,” said Chan. The space has been under renovations for the past four months. Once the work is done, Peripheral Hours will come to life once again. The space advocates for and invites BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) and queer artists to make and exhibit their art, one of the few art spaces in the city where minority groups are actively encouraged and supported to stretch their practice as far as it can go. It is difficult for marginalized artists to find space and representation in the contemporary art world, explained Chan. Creating Peripheral Hours is about
reclaiming a space, she explained, and reclaiming power in a society that does not always reflect her. She says it is a form of self-empowerment. Born in Montreal to Chinese immigrant parents in the era of Bill 101, Chan says she has always been questioning her identity. She spent her childhood assimilating and integrating with Quebec’s francophone culture. She learned to navigate the realms of identity politics that strike the province and learned to speak the language. Blending into the landscape, she molded herself into a “Quebecer.” Feeling “sucked in with a collective identity,” Chan’s young adult years had her itching for a change. “I wanted to make art. But I was not given [the] opportunity,” she said. “I was not given the support to express myself creatively, to have an artistic voice.” With immigrant parents who did not support her dreams of becoming an artist, a lack of representation in contemporary art, and a lack of spaces that invite and support marginalized artists, Chan felt stuck. The white walls of an institution are beneficial to some, but for others—especially marginalized voices
“I have been colonized all my life. I have to now decolonize myself for the rest of my life.” — Victoria Catherine Chan in Quebec—they can be stifling. A lack of representation means many artists— including Chan—don’t find themselves with an opportunity to flourish. A “whitewashing” of the art world leaves POC and immigrant artists at a loss. A lack of discourse about the province’s—and the country’s—colonial history doesn’t allow for true symbiosis
OC TOBER 2019
