Whitby Junction Deja-vu (2007)

Built in 1903, the Whitby Junction railway station was moved in 1970 to make way for a Government of Ontario Transit station. That same year it was re-opened as the Whitby Arts Inc. Station Gallery. In 2004 it was again moved to its present day location in Iroquois Park, Whitby. My project for Station Gallery focuses on the idea that one’s sense of time and place is shaped and triggered by the buildings that inhabit specific places. I am interested in how this sense of place is affected when a building is moved to a new location. The main image above is a view facing south from the station taken by Marjorie G. Ruddy in 1935. I enlarged it to life size and suspended it in the gallery to hypothetically align image with the present view from the station. The photograph was printed on transparent material to allow both views to be seen simultaneously. This was supported by contemporary images that were taken at the current location and the two previous locations. The direction that each image was taken corresponded to it’s orientation in the adjacent gallery. All of the images were printed (and projected) using the same transparent material.

Deja vu: the sensation of having experienced an exact situation more then once, sometimes called remembering the future.

Exhibition history: Greg Forest and Ryan Legassicke, curated by Gil McElroy, Station Gallery, 2007, Whitby, ON