The Trash Canada Highway Project.
In the spring of 2019 I travelled by car from Victoria, British Columbia to Montréal, Quebec, Canada, stopping frequently in remote, beautiful, and seemingly untouched locations.
There is a dreamlike inevitability to seeing the Canadian landscape as we have been programmed to see it, either through folksy indoctrination or the photography of those wishing to sell it. But a gentle scratching of our home and native land will reveal a more interesting story beyond the messaging of the Canadian tourist brochure.
Along highways in every province lies evidence and a story of our civilization in the form of litter. It is small and for the most part well hidden from view.
This stuff of civilization, pounded by time and abraded by tires, taxing temperatures, and destructive wavelengths of light, has absolutely no connection to it’s environment. It has been scattered with ease by travellers, hewers, and haulers and instantly forgotten.
I attempted to photograph this litter on the margins of the highway but the results proved less than interesting. As a result I collected the objects and returned to my studio in Victoria where I photographed each item in a controlled setting. It is my hope that the viewer connects to the qualities of these objects and compositions before connecting the dots to environmental and societal issues.
These are the remains of our manufacturing processes, mostly single use, made for practical purposes or the delight of children. It will remain on the earth for periods of time beyond human comprehension, long after the atoms that make up these photographs are returned to nature.
Christopher Hinton
Victoria, BC.
October 2019
