Camp Namegans: Jeremy Herndl

Fri. May 10th 2019 - Fri. May 31st 2019
Landscape is not passive - it is political and social and it bears the character of the people who live and work on it. It contains a human legacy, layered over the centuries - of unceded First Nations territory, colonization, agriculture, industrialization and gentrification. Landscape is also about ‘nature’ and in my work, human and nature are regarded as intertwined and mutually defining.

As real estate prices climb the margin at the bottom expands leaving more and more people with no where to be. In early spring of 2018 the homeless community in the CRD established a camp at Regina Park in Saanich. In July, I asked the camp organizer and residents if I could make a painting of their camp and over the week that I spent working on it, I met many people listening to stories from residents, police, public health nurses and the media. The camp had a community kitchen and social space, toilets, recovery and safe injection space.

A few months later, the residents of Camp Namegans were evicted.

Jeremy Herndl http://www.jeremyherndl.com
Instagram @jeremyherndl