30 November, 2000–January, 2001

Exploring the phenomenon of spectacle in daily life, Roy Kiyooka's filmic street works from the late 1970s move from intimate interior spaces out onto the street and ultimately into the realm of entertainment of the everyday. The three works in this exhibition, “Back Alley,” “Powell Street Vernacular,” and “PNE” include 8mm film work, projected slide sequences and a number of still photo sequences which have a direct relationship to the film projects. These works focus on Kiyooka's daily community, the street — Japan town in Vancouver's downtown eastside — and the narratives of those urban spaces, moving the self into the familiar public domain.

The most personal of these works is “Back Alley.” This film work begins by looking from a window in Kiyooka's East Vancouver house out onto the back alley. The camera shifts from a working garage where mechanics converse over the repair of an engine, to birds on telephone wires, into an interior still life, recording activities of the everyday environment. The work locates self and place, beginning with morning light and ending with the moon, using high speed and other experimental film techniques to integrate the components of daily experience and the work's personal narrative. “Powell Street Vernacular” flips between black and white to color and takes the camera onto the street to engage with everyday activity. This work provides a segue from the personal into the spectacle environment of the “PNE” work. From the street Kiyooka moves the camera to Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition, continuing with the morning to evening format.