Halifax Pauper’s Grave (2021)
18” x 24” (each), archival inkjet printIn Halifax Pauper’s Grave, photographs of the Halifax Memorial Library are digitally altered to echo and transcribe the history and significance of the events that have occurred over the years on the site. The work blends digitized archival material, graffiti, protest signage, and facsimile of monument with real architectural elements to draw connections between past and present colonial violence.
A pauper’s grave of several thousand people exists beneath the site currently occupied by the vacant Halifax Memorial Library. QR codes can be scanned to further explore the archival materials that refer to the difficult history of the site. The integrated materials bring forward questions about policing, government, private property, as well as the use of monuments and memorials as a tool of forgetting. Resembling the monolithic architecture of the Halifax Memorial Library, the photographs become references to the dominating ideological power that forms histories like the one discussed in Halifax Pauper’s Grave. The project Halifax Pauper’s Grave is meant to reflect on the insidious history of class in Halifax, and question the continued prioritization of private property during the ongoing housing crisis.