Perspective Lines of the Future: FutureVision at CICA
Reviewed by: Alysha Li
FutureVision, the new graffiti mural from multi-disciplinary artist Zens, in collaboration with artists Case, Abscond, and Col, sprawls across the exterior gallery wall of CICA located in Blood Alley. Capturing the viewer with a futuristic neon colour palette and tight perspective lines that draw the eye in, the mural takes a winding approach to imagining the composition of Vancouver’s future.
The use of glowing signs and highly saturated colours harkens back to former decades of Vancouver’s urban aesthetic. At one point, the city had one of the highest concentrations of neon signage in the world, rivalling even the streets of Vegas, before a 1974 bylaw pushed for the adoption of a more natural look.[1] A remainder of those decades, the electric signs of Ovaltine Café and Save-On-Meats have become iconic markers of the DTES and Gastown communities. As Ovaltine Café enters its eighty-first year of serving the DTES neighbourhood, the restaurant makes space for the community’s past, present, and future.[2]
Past and present histories and landmarks come together under the vibrant colour scheme, and all pull towards a vanishing point in the horizon glowing in blue. In the foreground, the popular Gastown Steam Clock, built in 1977, angles towards the center.[3] Zens, Case, and Abscond’s tags, their graffiti signatures, float around the mural, tilting towards the vanishing point. A futuristic car with a licence plate referencing the gallery faces the horizon. Even the old parchments heeding “Housing Crises on Way” and “Restore the Peace” offer a timelessness; they recall the Vancouver housing crises of the 1980s just as they call attention to the housing inequity of today.[4] Nothing is ever just in the past, present, or future as historical, contemporary, and upcoming references overlap and invoke each other.
As the immersive perspective lines pull signs, buildings, problems, histories, art galleries, and even the artists themselves into the future, the mural invites one to think about the multi-temporality of the spaces we love, the people we care about, and the tensions that trouble us. What gets brought into the future? How is it brought there? And what role do audiences, artists, and galleries play in the interwoven ways we collectively move into the future? The colours are dynamic and the angles are sweeping in a mural that looks towards the horizon of Vancouver, but the composition and array of details insist on an exploration of the tangles of temporality and a focus on local community in creating Vancouver’s “future vision.”
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bright-lights-big-city-vancouver-looks-to-change-its-sign-bylaws-1.3732818
[2] https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/ovaltine-cafe-survives-a-new-ownership
[3] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/revered-and-reviled-the-gastown-steam-clock-turns-40-1.4299839
[4] https://www.cbc.ca/archives/why-it-was-hard-to-sell-or-buy-a-home-in-vancouver-in-1981-1.5242298#:~:text=Many%20Vancouver%20homeowners%20were%20in,same%20month%20the%20year%20before.
This mural was made possible thanks to the support of the City of Vancouver, Gastown BIA , CICA Vancouver, and The Last of Us production team.