Can There Be Catharsis for Colonizers?

Brandon Cotter
Vancouver, BC

Dimension

89" x 3" x 41"

Médium

Hand-Bleached Candian Red Ensign (1920c.), Handmade Gold Beaver Finial, Flag pole and bracket.

I hand-bleached this Canadian flag in a metal bucket for over an hour in my kitchen. As I churned the slowly fading symbol of colonialism through the murky broth, I thought about my country and my ancestors. How does a person reconcile with their damning ancestral history? Will I find catharsis in this manual labour I am doing? Do I deserve relief? Can there be catharsis for colonizers? When the process was finally over and I had stripped as much colour from the flag as I could, I wrung it out over my bathtub and hung it to dry.

Can There Be Catharsis for Colonizers?

Brandon Cotter
Vancouver, BC

À propos de l'artiste
À propos de l'artiste

Brandon Cotter
Vancouver, BC

M. Brandon Cotter (b. 1988, Vancouver, B.C.) is a Canadian interdisciplinary visual artist living and working in Vancouver, BC, on the un-ceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Brandon makes work from his perspective as an able-bodied white male settler. One of the primary focuses of Brandon's artistic practice is responding to societal problems stemming from the colonization of Canada, from his perspective as a settler. Through his work and a critical engagement with Canada's past he hopes to re-chart white settler relationships towards indigenous and immigrant populations and open up new avenues for cultural understanding.

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