"Sara Graham: Bromleys Bluff"
2004-04-23 until 2004-05-21
New Gallery
Calgary, AB, CA Canada

Bromley’s Bluff involves the creation of a fictional city that stands in opposition to contemporary Canadian urban planning. A reaction to the phenomenon of disjointed and insular suburban communities,, the series of drawings making up Bromley’s Bluff does not suggest a utopic solution. Bromley’s Bluff represents a “somewhere” that cannot be fully comprehended or whose specific parts cannot be made into a whole because Bromley’s Bluff’s premise is based on unresolved failures of cities.

"The city is an ever present component within my artistic practice. The city is a collective of things, ideas, spaces and times in perpetual transformation. These things are always moving,  and fluid. The body of work that I have been developing over the last two years has been concerned with the functions and results of urban planning. I am interested to participate in the  cross-disciplinary approach of contemporary urban discourse that incorporates philosophical, cultural, sociological and architectural criticism of the city and of city life. In Bromley's Bluff these theories become a practice that is recirculated as theoretical constructions of my explorations of geographic fictions, through architecture, planning and art. Bromley's Bluff is about the continuous transformation, decomposition, expansion and retraction of urban development in the city." - Sara Graham

Bromley's Bluff, a fictional city that stands in opposition to contemporary urban planning as it puts forward a proposition for rethinking cites.  The proposition is not utopic (although, Henry Lefebvre suggested that the very idea of a utopia were important as a starting point for action). Nevertheless, Bromley's Bluff is not a solution for urban planning; it consists of as many solutions to as many problems. It is built on a foundation of shaky ground. Bromley's Bluff represents a "somewhere" that cannot be fully comprehended or whose specific parts cannot be made into a whole because its premise is predicated upon the continual displacement of urban forms and urban lives.

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