Parallax(e): Perspectives on the Canada–U.S. Border | The Reach Gallery

Canada and the United States have immense powers over people and legal rights. Yet they are not the first or only nations in these lands.

What do we really know about the history of the 49th parallel? How was it visualized and carved into the landscape over a century and a half ago? What perspectives are lost when we look at the boundary line from only two sides?

In the mid-nineteenth century, U.S. expansionist ambitions came into conflict with British territorial claims, represented by Hudson’s Bay Company trading posts scattered throughout the Pacific Northwest. Diplomatic negotiations led to the creation of the international boundary along the 49th parallel. The western end of the border was a geopolitical invention by British and U.S. officials, engineers, and surveyors working in Indigenous territories, which have their own sovereign boundaries.

This landmark exhibition brings together for the first time historic photographs, watercolours, and maps made by the boundary surveyors who drew a line from the Salish Sea to the Rocky Mountains between 1857 and 1862. Parallax is a collaboratively curated project that puts these nineteenth-century archival materials into dialogue with ambitious sculptures, photographs, installations, and new media works made by contemporary artists.

Together, these creative contributions explore the communities, cultural connections, and ecosystems that were here before, and persist today, despite the boundary line’s impact on lands, waters, and collective imaginations. Offering multiple perspectives on this legacy, Parallax asks us to adjust our vision of the 49th parallel.