The Screening Room. Credit: Imposter Cities
Canadian cities seldom play themselves in movies and television, more often doubling for other places in the world. A new exhibition in Venice celebrates this duality while raising questions about identity, authenticity, and how we experience architecture and urban geography in the digital age.
Impostor Cities is Canada’s official entry in the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. It opened to the public on May 22 online and at the Canada Pavilion, which was built in 1958 in the Giardini di Castello where the Venice Biennale is based.
“There is something about Canadian architecture that allows it to stand in,” says Dr. Jennifer VanderBurgh, associate professor of film and media studies at Saint Mary’s. “The exhibition is not saying that’s good or bad, just something to think about.”
Dr. VanderBurgh’s work is associated with the prestigious international exhibition through her essay, “Screens Stop Here! Tax Credit Thinking and the Contemporary Meaning of 'Local' Filmmaking”. In it, she examines the role of tax incentive programs in how Canada appears onscreen, and the economic and cultural impacts of this over time. Originally published in the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, the 15-page essay was invited to be included in the exhibition’s academic resources. It’s also available online to SMU students and faculty via the Patrick Power Library.
Dr. Jennifer VanderBurgh, associate professor of film and media studies
VanderBurgh describes ‘tax credit thinking’ in the essay as “a way of thinking that tends to focus on economic benefits when justifying why films and film industries are important to places and people,” with job creation prioritized over cultural content or artistic integrity. Fear of cultural encroachment “has been replaced with a legacy of federal and provincial incentives that have been designed with the express purpose of enticing American, international and out-of-province projects."
Impostor Cities considers many factors in Canada’s success as a film stand-in, from tax credits and lower production costs to skilled crews, high-quality facilities, and diverse landscapes. Our cities and buildings also tend to look more generic than those in many countries, argues the exhibition’s designer, Montreal architect Thomas Balaban.
Due to the pandemic, the Canadian team couldn’t travel to Italy to install the exhibition, including Balaban and curator David Theodore, Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Health, and Computation at McGill University. They instructed local workers via Zoom and FaceTime, and the Canadian Pavilion is now wrapped almost entirely in green fabric. Visitors can scan a QR code on their phones, taking them to an app that uses green screen technology to turn the Pavilion into iconic Canadian cityscapes on Instagram.
“It’s a really cool idea,” says VanderBurgh. “Inside the pavilion, one of the central pieces is a video that’s a compilation of 3,000 clips of films and TV shows where Canadian cities have stood in for other places.”
The website shares views of the exhibition, interspersed with film and TV clips and interviews with Canadian architects, film directors, set designers, and scholars. VanderBurgh attended the digital launch, where participants used avatars to mingle virtually and explore the Pavilion from afar. She also plans to take part in conferences and other scholarly events ahead for Impostor Cities. It’s a fascinating exercise in “the democratization of arts access through the digital world,” she says. “A way to make these things and gather in ways that we couldn’t before.”
VanderBurgh teaches in the Department of English Language and Literature. She is nearing the finish line on her forthcoming book, What Television Remembers: Artefacts and Footprints of TV in Toronto. She’s also working on a book about Nova Scotia filmmaker Margaret Perry, and working with other researchers and the Nova Scotia Archives to digitize Perry’s films through an Archive / Counterarchive case study project.
Students in all three faculties at Saint Mary’s can take a Minor in Film Studies as part of their undergraduate degrees. VanderBurgh is the undergraduate coordinator for the minor, and will also soon be undergraduate coordinator for the Atlantic Canada Studies program.
Impostor Cities is on view until November 21 at the Canadian Pavilion and www.impostorcities.com, in the Venice Biennale Architettura 2021. Read more from the Canada Council and follow @impostorcities on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and via the hashtag #ImpostorCities2021.