Geography Lesson: Canadian Notes

Photographer and writer Allan Sekula constructs narratives that define land and itspolitical, social, and economic demarcations. He has described Geography Lesson: Canadian Notes as aconjectural comparison of imaginary and material geographies in the advanced capitalist world. Inthe book, which is based on a 1986 exhibition, he examines the iconography found in images of alandscape altered by mining, of bank architecture and its messages of cultural stability, and of theland as a source of economic wealth as it appears on Canadian money.The seventy-six photographs forma narrative sequence augmented by captions and by the text, which is written in the subjective voiceof a single investigator and storyteller. The photographs link two sites: the Inco mine and smelterin Sudbury and the Bank of Canada in Ottawa. The deep roots of their existence -- the creation anddistribution of wealth -- are far more intimately connected than appearances would suggest. Canadianbills bear images of industry that draw resources from the land, contributing to the myth ofnational independence and self-determination. Issues of national identity and independence acquire aheightened poignancy in light of Sekula's underlying subject, the relationship between Canada'sresource-based economy and U.S. capital.In essays following Sekula's text, Gary Dufour discussesCanadian Notes as an examination of social and economic discourses that shape perceptions of theland, and John O'Brian discusses the dynamics of a resource-based economy, relations between Canadaand the United States, and photography's ability to regulate appearances and therefore to controlreality.Distributed for the Vancouver Art Gallery