Briana Palmer

Artist uses model train to examine white privilege in childhood play.

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Taking inspiration from the sights and sounds of her hometown, Briana Palmer’s Traversing the line, with no fixed point, on until Feb. 7 at Martha Street Studio in Winnipeg, uses Canada’s railway system as a backdrop for miniature narratives that examine imagined scenarios of colonial presence.

Growing up in the mountain setting of Revelstoke, B.C., Palmer, like many white children, was happily oblivious to the privilege of her life. After all, when you are comfortable and well cared for, one’s first instinct is not to ask: At whose expense?

Only after leaving the community as an adult did she begin to reflect on the impacts of colonialism. Thus, the nostalgia in her work harbours deeper meanings.

The gallery buzzes with a carefully crafted and arranged railway scene, complete with miniature players, props and landscapes. Precarious wooden structures hold up flat inky plains of action on pause. Clean, white children hold tiny ceramic globs and fuzz balls no bigger than a fingertip. Cowboys and Mounties are spaced around the scene, silently patrolling and keeping order. Vintage cut outs atop motionless train cars seem to look in wonder at the scene around them. 

Typically, children play with toy trains, making up stories as they go. But in the text accompanying the show, Palmer asks: “Historically, who gets to play with model trains? Who creates these miniature utopian worlds, constructing their own idealized version of society?”

Palmer, who teaches at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., asks viewers to search out stories and create their own narratives. The world she has created offers a mixed bag of murky utopia that feels like a collaboration between Dr. Seuss and American filmmaker Stan Brakhage. It encourages us to look behind the scenes, beyond the whimsy. 

Collages on the walls complement potential storylines. Otherworldly adventures meld with printed images from outdated textbooks, stirring memories and seemingly referencing “the good old days” – times that, in reality, were not so great for everyone.

Encouraging viewers to reflect on what they are seeing has been a focal point of artistic work forever. And while it may appear at first (or even second) glance that there’s nothing sinister about the world of play, Palmer asks visitors to question the scene before them, understanding that, even within play, there is a privilege. ■

Traversing the line, with no fixed point is on view at Martha Street Studio in Winnipeg from Jan. 9 to Feb. 7, 2020.

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Martha Street Studio

11 Martha St, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 1A2

204-779-6253

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