#canadaday NSCADMFA MFA thehobbyist lethbridge decolonizationstation decolonization art decolonizeart decolonize

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“Decolonization Station” was an installation and performance/participatory art project by Arianna Richardson, The Hobbyist, that took place on Saturday, July 1st in downtown Lethbridge, AB during the city’s official “Canada Day” celebrations.  In this participatory art project, the viewer was asked to engage directly in a dialogue about colonization/decolonization as presented through commercialized images of Canada.  This dialogue was realized through active audience participation in the destruction of artworks and ephemera that resulted from an investigative project that Richardson undertook from 2012-2015: The Canada Collection.  This investigation involved the collection of mass-produced, household objects, tchotchkes, and souvenirs that present popular images of Canada.  Most often, objects were collected from secondhand shops and garage sales across Western Canada, the prevailing iconographies presenting a Canadian identity thinly veiled by a facade of friendliness and humour, untamed, majestic wilderness and seemingly quaint imperialism.