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Current Exhibitions
Four installations by Edwin Janzen Exhibition runs from Friday, August 13 to Thursday, September 30, 2010 The question of the "winnable" nuclear war has been much asked, yet few have pondered what it really takes to win a "cold" war. After decades of entombment in the shadows of Cold War "virtues" like fear, patriotism, paranoia and might, many of us, it appears, have much invested, psychologically and otherwise, in the utility of enemies. At this point, the notion of victory loses much of its meaning. Since the Soviet Union is no more, we trade away our democratic rights and liberties piece by piece, along with billions of our tax dollars, trusting our governments' dubious promises to deliver us from newer but lesser evils like terrorism, crime and even legitimate forms of dissent. As new categories of "evildoers" appear closer and closer to home, the endlessly uttered promise of "security" never seems to wear out as a pretext for turning the violence and surveillance of the state ever more inward against the citizens themselves. Once this occurs, we as a society have crawled down into a psychological and ethical cave of our own making. The decommissioned shelters and ruins of the Cold War, like the Diefenbunker - these old caves of rebar, concrete and asbestos - take on a new life of metaphorical meaning, perhaps offering us conceptual tools better to comprehend the current security-obsessed psycho-political underworld from which we have not yet learned to free ourselves.
Canada and the Cold War, a permanent exhibition unveiled in November 2008, traces Canada's role in the conflict. Diefenbunker: Secrecy for Survival, a permanent exhibition unveiled in November 2008, tells the story of the Diefenbunker's conception and construction. Fallout shelters: The Basement Home Fallout Shelter is a walk-through mockup of a family-of-four basement fallout shelter of the type the federal government was recommending be constructed in homes across the nation in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. The Community Fallout Shelter is a recreation of a group fallout shelter. Radioactivity: Birth to Bomb provides a 45-year glimpse of but a few of the scientific milestones that helped us to understand and to subsequently control the atom. From Detonation to Devastation, an exhibition created by students of Algonquin College, chronicles the effects of nuclear weapons. Lost Nuke: The World's First Broken Arrow is the story of the first 'lost' nuclear weapon, featuring artefacts from the site of the infamous plane crash. Fearing the Worst: The Cold War in Ottawa, a temporary exhibition created by students at Algonquin College. Preparing the Nation: Canada's Medical Response to the Cold War, a temporary exhibition created by students at Algonquin College. |
