Douglas Coupland?s Slogans for the Twenty-First Century is displayed as part of the exhibition. Photo: CCA Montreal
TEXT Sara Spike

PHOTOS CCA Montreal, unless otherwise noted
Walking along the main corridor of Montreal?s Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), visitors currently encounter what appears to be a downed hydro tower. Contorted and mangled with its head bowed to the floor, this is Douglas Coupland?s The Ice Storm, a stark reminder of the climate change-influenced weather that left many in Central Canada without electricity for weeks on end in the winter of 1998. Towers like these continue to harness and transport power from the James Bay hydroelectric project, a massive environmental intervention with wide-ranging social and ecological repercussions. This complex relationship between Canadians and the natural world is at the heart of the CCA?s current exhibition, It?s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment. From the Group of Seven and the maple leaf, to Hinterland Who?s Who and the wildlife on our currency, the Canadian cultural imaginary romanticizes a national affinity with nature. However, as this exhibition re-minds visitors, Canada is also a world leader in the development and exploitation of natural resources, and its record of conservation and environmental protection lags behind many other countries. Planned to coincide with Canada?s 150th anniversary, the exhibition foregrounds this contradiction, asking if our supe...