N.E. Thing Co., Act #130 - Big Arrow, Park Royal Shopping Mall, 1968 Virtual Museum of Canada
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A large arrow painted on the road points towards an entrance of a shopping mall in this black and white image. A woman walks at the left side of the image. In images such as this one, The N.E. Thing Co. address the various ways of endowing a place with meaning.

N.E. Thing Co., Act #130 - Big Arrow, Park Royal Shopping Mall, 1968

In a now classic series of N.E. Thing Co. photos, the audience's gaze is broken up as the photos instruct the viewer to "Start Viewing," then follow with "You are now in the middle," and end with "Stop Viewing." These commands being issued to the observer play with the idea of the small bites by which we consume spaces with our gaze, especially as tourists. N.E. Thing Co. makes explicit not only the directedness of the tourist's gaze-playing off the authority of the tour guide to tell people when and where to look-but also the performativity of the simple act of looking itself.

N.E. Thing Co. was an art collaboration established in Vancouver, BC by Iain Baxter and Ingrid Baxter in 1966 and operated until 1978.


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