Mark Prier

Artwork

The Stump Act, 2004-2006 (collaboration with Melissa Creasey)

In the summer of 2004, we performed The Stump Act, traveling the entire 1896 km length of historic Ontario Highway 11 (which began with Yonge Street in Toronto), from the shores of Lake Ontario to the US-Canada border at Rainy River. Along the way, we erected twenty rectangular wooden signs depicting tree stumps, dividing the street into twenty sections. The result is a two channel video installation that documents the performance, partly from the dash of our car.

Background: Yonge Street was a massive military undertaking. John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, intended the street to lead from York (now Toronto) to Lake Toronto (now Lake Simcoe). It was to be a north-south access route for military use, eventually named by Simcoe after his friend Sir George Yonge, the British Secretary at War. Simcoe did not intend to start with nothing. He scouted the Humber-Holland Trail and eventually built Yonge Street along the Don Trail, both of which were considered ‘Indian Trails’ by the Europeans. At first, the street was nothing but a twenty-foot-wide, “narrow, twisting trail dotted with ugly tree stumps and treacherous holes with steep hills and unabridged streams.” This prompted one York magistrate to enforce a “Stump Act” circa 1800, setting the penalty for public drunkenness to the removal of at least one tree stump from Yonge Street.

Materials: 20 weathered wood signs, woodchips, sawdust, looped NTSC DVD (6m 23s, two-channel projection), sledgehammer, rope, post-hole driver, yankee screwdriver, Ontario maps, map pins, vinyl text listing communities near signs along Yonge Street, vinyl text with historical background of The Stump Act.

Photos: installation shots by Gareth Lichty, performance shots and footage by Melissa Creasey & Mark Prier.

A stack of wooden signs (each one with a drawing of a cut tree stump routed into the weathered face) resembling a beaver lodge sits on an old wooden floor beside a pile of sawdust and woodchips with a clear space in the middle in the shape of a lake. A close-up of a stack of wooden signs (each one with a drawing of a cut tree stump routed into the weathered face) sitting on an old wooden floor beside a pile of sawdust and woodchips with a clear space in the middle. A stack of wooden signs (each one with a drawing of a cut tree stump routed into the weathered face) resembling a beaver lodge sits on an old wooden floor beside a pile of sawdust and woodchips with a clear space in the middle in the shape of a lake. In the background is a white wall with a Victorian double door and wall trim. A wooden sign with a drawing of a cut tree stump routed into its weathered face is stuck in the ground at the edge of a road shoulder amongst the ditch plants.
A man hammers a wooden sign into the ground at the edge of a road shoulder amongst the ditch plants; the sign has a drawing of a cut tree stump routed into its weathered face. A woman crouches, working on a wooden sign stuck into the ground at the edge of a road shoulder amongst the ditch plants; the sign has a drawing of a cut tree stump routed into its weathered face. A corner in a gallery room: on the wall are two maps of Ontario with Highway 11 highlighted and marked with evenly spaced pins, below the maps are names of locations that correspond to the pins; hanging from the ceiling on a rope is a sledgehammer, below which is a pile of woodchips and sawdust with a post-hole driver laid upon it. A corner in a gallery room: a panel of text covers a window, while a wooden sign (with a drawing of a cut tree stump routed into its weathered face) hangs from a yellow rope and pulley system; below the sign is a pile of woodchips and sawdust. A wooden sign (with a drawing of a cut tree stump routed into its weathered face) hangs from a yellow rope and pulley system in the corner of a gallery room.