Mobile Homes

Craig Leonard

A Space Main Gallery

January 5 – February 9, 2007

Copresented by: Maritime History Archive

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Mobile Homes is the culmination of Craig Leonard’s two-year partnership with the Maritime History Archive in St. John’s, Newfoundland. With the encouragement of archivist Heather Wareham, Leonard undertook fieldwork across Newfoundland in search of photographs from private collections depicting abandoned communities as a result of the province’s Resettlement schemes (1954-72). Of the 130 photographs gathered, Leonard will present a selection that focuses on the physical movement of houses over water as captured by Nellie Feltham, Rex Ralph, Vera Penney, Sherry Giles, Mildred & Stanley Watton, Mark Button, Walt & Shirley Andrews, Irene Pardy, Marilyn Marsh, and Mayor Dave Saunders. Mobile Homes includes a drawing by the bureaucrat and obsessive indexer Mr. Alex Stacey, an intricate relocation chart based on census records, an Esso autoroute map that predates the Resettlement years, a Maritime History Archives fieldwork uniform, and the video Art Wicks of Badger’s Quay (2006) which presents Art himself explaining the technique he used to haul over 20 houses from Port Nelson to Badger’s Quay.

Biographies

Craig Leonard is currently a Lecturer at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. He completed a Masters of Visual Studies at the University of Toronto. He has exhibited his works across Canada and internationally.