Alison Norlen: Armatures and Imaginaries

The carousel located in Riverside Park has been in operation since 1919. Designed by Allan Herschall, a prominent manufacturer of carousels and other amusement park rides, it was purchased by the City of Guelph in 1970 from Conklin & Garrett, known as North America’s traveling amusement corporation, and situated in the park. It is one of only 148 antique wooden carousels still in existence in North America today.

Long interested in carousels and amusement parks more broadly, Norlen activates the complexity of their imagery and the multi-dimensional narratives at play – from the particular menagerie of animals and their detailed ornamentation and stances to the landscapes depicted in their rooftop vignettes, to the mirrors and music that transport riders imaginatively. Possessing a distinctive visual language associated with their makers, every carousel also references a particular time and place – a time capsule of sorts.

Here, Norlen has taken on the challenge of creating a site-specific project over five days inspired by the Riverside Park Carousel – producing a three-dimensional sketch that coaxes paper to take on shape and volume. Exploring the mythical dimensions of carousel animals, she has included one signature Riverside Park horse among a medley of iconic creatures drawn from other sites of amusement. With features at once humorous , grotesque, and menacing, the installation highlights how sites of fun can also be sites of fear. Accentuating the illogical spaces of these rides, her sculpture blurs inside and outside, while adding autobiographical references such as the prairie imagery visible on its façade as well as the detail of a little house that both refer to home. The raw, unfinished quality of the work speaks to her commitment to process and risk, while laying bare her sources, preparatory designs, and peripheral allusions highlights her conviction that knowledge is produced in the act, not outcome, of creation.

This drawing is based on a widely circulated historical photograph of the Heffernan Street Bridge under construction in 1914. Spanning the Speed River as well as the railroad, the footbridge was part of a pedestrian route that developed in the 19th century, connecting the residential neighbourhood of St. George’s Ward to the city’s commercial centre. Replacing an earlier metal bridge that had been in place since 1881, the unusual double-arch construction was designed by Ernest E. Clawson, City Engineer, and built in 1914 by Galbraith and Cate.

Rendering the footbridge unfinished, Norlen disrupts our expectations of the image as well as our relationship to the built environment and returns us, over a century later, to the point at which the outcome of the construction was unresolved – a moment of open-ended potential inherent to planning, designing, and building. Here, as in many of her works, there is a rich tension between the ruin and the as-yet-unbuilt, between past and future.

Left to right: Evan Macdonald, The 1965 Demolition of the Guelph Public Library, 1965, oil on canvas. Gift of the Guelph Creative Arts Association, 1980. Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection at the Art Gallery of Guelph; Evan MacDonald, Demolition of the Guelph General Hospital, ca. 1957, watercolour. Gift of John and Shirley Gilbert, 2014. Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection at the Art Gallery of Guelph

With a design based on architect Ithiel Town’s patent from the 1820s, the current lattice truss covered bridge that spans the confluence of the Eramosa and Speed Rivers in Guelph is a much more recent addition to the local landscape, raised by hand by 400 volunteers in 1992. A civil engineer, Town was among the first generation of professional architects in North America in the 19th century and his design was particularly significant because it could be built quickly by relatively unskilled workers from materials that were readily available. He had posed this challenge for himself: “By what construction or arrangement will the least quantity of materials, and cost of labor, erect a bridge of any practicable span or opening between piers or abutments, to be the strongest and most permanent, and to admit of the easiest repair?”

Now an iconic site and symbol of the city, the allusion to historical bridge construction evokes a connection with the past, as the patina or the ”look” of history is a visible testament to age, use, and the passage of time, conveying a sense of tradition and continuity. Dense with scaffolding, Norlen’s work suggests a bridge at the culmination of construction. With cranes in two separate locations moving the structure into place, she playfully highlights its insertion into the local landscape. The window itself becomes an element of the installation, as the natural space visible beyond the glass becomes part of the imagined geography within the drawing that surrounds it.

The city of Guelph has a strong historical association with war, particularly in the context of Canada’s involvement in World War I and World War II. In this drawing, Alison Norlen has taken on the vessels and shipyards that were part of the war effort. Named by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to refer to their aspirational role in bringing “liberty” back to Europe, the first Liberty Ship was the SS Patrick Henry, depicted here, launched on September 27, 1941. The design was technically groundbreaking: in order to increase cargo capacity and to accelerate production, the ships were to be all-welded rather than riveted, allowing rapid completion – taking 30 days at their peak production.

In this drawing, the ship is caught in a moment of suspension that is compelling to Norlen as the form could be in the process of construction or deconstruction, at once historic and futuristic. And while the Liberty Ships were deemed unattractive by many, she attributes an elegance to the vessel’s form through the use of a muted palette with industrial tones to generate its detailed structure. As in her depictions of built environments, the ship is in an ambitious state ringed by busy cranes as it rests on precarious and fragile staging. Such references to “informal” architectures recur in Norlen’s work. In 2006, she undertook a large-scale installation in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, exploring the vernacular landscape of fishing stages historically constructed along the province’s shorelines – interconnected networks of platforms poised on seemingly fragile poles yet able to withstand harsh coastal environments. Now largely obsolete due to modernization, then as now her subjects bear the scars and wear of histories we will never witness or see.

Left to right: Alison Norlen, Quarry, 2023, acrylic, ink, charcoal, and chalk on Stonehenge paper. Courtesy of the artist; Alison Norlen, Covered Bridge, 2023, acrylic, ink, charcoal, and chalk on Stonehenge paper. Courtesy of the artist

Left to right: Demolition of the Customs House, 1960, oil on card. Gift of the Family of Evan Macdonald, 2009. Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection at the Art Gallery of Guelph; Removal of City Hall Tower, 1961 (above), charcoal, graphite, ink on paper. Gift of the Family of Evan Macdonald, 2009. Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection at the Art Gallery of Guelph; Demolition of the Customs House, 1960 (below), watercolour on paper. Gift of the Family of Evan Macdonald, 2009. Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection at the Art Gallery of Guelph; Demolition of the Royal Opera House, 1965, watercolour on paper. Gift of the Family of Evan Macdonald, 2009. Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection at the Art Gallery of Guelph

Introduced to the Guelph cityscape in November of 1960, a decorative crown was suspended in St. George’s Square for almost two decades. Purchased from Texas as part of a holiday decoration package, the metal structure was ultimately removed in 1979 to prepare for the renewal of the square. As it was found to be badly corroded at that point, it was disposed of in the Eastview Landfill site.

Documented here by Alison Norlen as it was being installed above the square lined with buildings, the crown was deemed to have symbolic local relevance in relation to the phrase “The Royal City” that has been used to describe the area as a result of the name given to the city in the process of settlement. Guelph was one of the family names of the British royal family.

Relocated and repurposed from its use in a dramatically different setting and context, the crown made of wire and holiday lights swings cheerily above the burgeoning urban landscape. Heightening the ambiguity of its scale, Norlen points to the ambivalence and irony that can often characterize civic symbols, as very simple forms are invested with story and the weight of historical and cultural significance.