Broadway
From the series 22 Hideouts
Cornwall
From the series 22 Hideouts
Xenia Street
From the series 22 Hideouts
Kananakis
From the series 22 Hideouts
Derek Cote
www.derekcote.com
derekcotestudio@hotmail.com
Place is a significant feature of my identity. I grew up in Canada, moving every four years on average. Living in a number of remote areas required me to extend a close relationship with my environment while forcing me to develop creative ways to entertain myself. I used to pretend I was Jacques Cartier, exploring my new surroundings on my trusty two-wheeled vessel, building forts and claiming territory in the name of the King. Every move presented another opportunity to take my place amongst history’s great explorers. Moving from Québec to Alberta Canada and having to learn English at the age of four was a challenge, but relocating to Washington State at age twelve further deepened my sense of displacement.
Beginning in 2004, the 22 Hideouts project has been an exploration into the phenomenon of memory and place as a stimulator for recollection. This project initially began as a series of flattened, linear drawings depicting each house I have ever lived in, drawn entirely from memory. These drawings were later cut out and folded into their respective structures, which were less than accurate, and often did not fit together properly. This revealed the inconsistencies of memory and brought into focus the shift in relational scale from childhood to adulthood. At this point, I was compelled to travel to each location and collect the necessary data to contextualize and research.
A modest research grant in 2006 provided the opportunity to document 17 of the “hideouts” throughout Washington State, British Columbia, and Alberta with one location still remaining in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and four in Brooklyn, New York. The resulting images record a twenty-eight year period, from 1976-2004. The images were collected to help alleviate some of the anxiety I had about revisiting some of my childhood homes; I did not anticipate what I would discover or experience on this trip emotionally, physically, or aesthetically. Some of the homes had changed very little while others were burned down or rotting back into the earth, seemingly uninhabited since I had left. One home was even razed to make way for a gas station and convenience store, which was subsequently shut down and stripped of any brand markings. The content within this body of work is much deeper than the actual photographs. The images are an anthropological and sociological investigation into the paths humans forge, and are a testament to changing economies, demographics, and geographies.
