Ken Lum

Artist Ken Lum constructed scale replicas of three squatter’s shacks. Propped up on stilts over the surface of the Offsite reflecting pool, the sculptural huts strike a sharp contrast in the context of surrounding downtown architecture.

The components take their form from the architecture of cabins that were erected on the north shore of Burrard Inlet, in an area near Dollarton known as the Maplewood Mudflats, during the early to mid-twentieth century. By the 1940’s there was an informal but cohesive community of squatters living in the ramshackle cabins of Maplewood’s intertidal zone. For this installation, Lum recreated the cabins of renowned writer Malcolm Lowry, artist Tom Burrows and Greenpeace leader Dr. Paul Spong. The artist decided on the title in thinking about the name of the development and ideas of utopia.