Michael R. Barrick

Make it Stop!

Seriously, enough with the fugly fibreglass fauna already.

Other cities have done pigs in the city, cows in the the city, and moose in the city. In yet another of our typically identity deficient flailing attempts at being "world class" (perfected during EXPO 86), Vancouver has followed suit with bears in the city, and last year's crowning glory of stupid, orcas in the city. How about sperm whales in the city?

How about "cougars in the city" and have statues of "39-year-old" women from Surrey and Coquitlam with feathered hair and tank tops? At least then the garish paint jobs would have a weird kind of appropriateness.

Or even better, how about be honest about how tacky these things are and just give up and have giant collectible plates?

I really don't care that all this hideousness is in the name of charity; the ends do not justify the means. Would it be alright to mug someone and give the money to charity? So why is is O.K. to visually assault us in the name of charity? Especially when the money raised comes from auctioning these atrocities off to the tasteless nouveau riche and corporate shills busy assuaging their guilt over those they walked over and scammed to "earn" their wealth in a feeding frenzy of profligate waste masquerading as charity and not the poor sods that have to look at these things day in and day out. If the donors were giving for the sake of genuine charity there'd be no need for tarting up batches of moulded fibreglass for the sake of "public awareness". Public awareness of what? Mostly the mutual back-patting at the gala event, I think.

The genuine philanthropists operate quietly in the background, not looking for the accolades of their peers and a prize pig as a trophy.

I wouldn't mind so much if these things simply went away at the end of their dubious usefulness, but they don't. Far too many of them linger on in corporate lobbies as blithe proclamations of self-aggrandizing false-charity, a.k.a. what SUV-driving marketing weasels consider "good P.R."

And what of the whore artists that participate in these things? What possesses someone with a degree in fine arts to think that painting a Hawaiian shirt on a fibreglass bear is a good idea?

Then there is this thing Vancouver has with the holy trinity of bear, killer whale, and salmon. There is some unwritten rule that in order for artwork form Vancouver to achieve "authentic west coast" status one of these animals must be present in the work. Is that all we have to say culturally? "These are the animals we shot, poisoned and over fished to near extinction and it makes us special." Am I the only person that sees the hypocrisy in that? Since we have now used up the bear and the killer whale, I'd be willing to bet that next year the city will be overrun by garishly painted fibreglass salmon.

I should also add that it is entirely beneficial that the artist be from somewhere at least a five hundred kilometres from Vancouver so they can claim to have chosen "the unique West Coast urban lifestyle that Vancouver offers" in their bio. It's amazing, really: nearly 200 years after Simon Fraser accidentally canoed down the wrong river and you'd think no one had been born here except the salmon spawning in the gutters when it rains hard, which, of course, is constantly. Even the "native" art being fobbed off on the tourists is predominantly Inuit and Haida. The Queen Charlotte Islands are over six hundred kilometres away. The nearest Inuit territory is a good fifteen hundred kilometres away.

One thousand five hundred miles to Inuit territory, and yet the symbol for the 2010 Winter Olympics is an inukshuk. That makes about as much sense as having an Navajo rug pattern or an Apache sand painting representing Vancouver. In fact it makes less sense since the Navajo and Apache live several hundred kilometres closer.

But that is a whole other rant.