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| June 29th, 2005: TIMELINE |
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9:00 p.m. - A unilateral decision is made by
Lambton College to demolish the sculpture
HOMAGE. The site-specific sculpture had
stood for thirty-one years at the college's main
entrance. The administration does not inform
the sculptor Haydn Davies, nor any cultural
organizations nor members of Sarnia's art's
community of their decision.
4:00 p.m. - A concerned community member
reaches out to the Davies family, informing
them of the college's decision. A family
member contacts the college immediately,
asking to delay the demolition in the hope of
relocating HOMAGE. The administration
agrees, and promises to take no action for
five days. Ignoring the promise, the sculpture
is destroyed within hours.
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7:00 p.m. HOMAGE is destroyed. |
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Photo: courtesy Bill Arnold
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"A large outdoor work by Canadian sculptor Haydn Davies has been torn down by the
Sarnia, Ont., college that commissioned it 31 years ago because it had become
a danger to the public", college officials said this week.
The family members of the 83-year-old artist are livid because
they were not consulted before the huge, Stonehenge-inspired sculpture,
made of laminated western red cedar, was removed Wednesday afternoon from its site
by the entrance to Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology.
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Adding to the controversy is a debate about the current state of the sculpture,
titled HOMAGE. A former art teacher at the college who was familiar with the work
said he saw it after it was removed by a back-hoe. "It has been totally demolished.
There's just a pile of rubble now," he said.
However, Lambton president Tony Hanlon disagreed:
"The work was disassembled . . . and stacked in a field to return to nature, as it were."
July 2nd, 2005
The Globe and Mail
When the story of HOMAGE'S destruction surfaced,
it was quickly picked up by the Osprey chain of
newspapers, including Sarnia's own OBSERVER.
"The moral issue is the salient one - that a prominent piece of Canadian art, by an internationally
recognized artist has been destroyed without thought to the artist or
the generations that will be deprived of its enjoyment.
The artist owns copyright on work and has moral rights that prevent the work
from being altered or mutilated in a way that would hurt the artist's honour or
reputation."
"Is destruction by backhoe not a mutilation?"
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"They acted before the long-weekend in the hope that no one would notice."
They claimed it had
"deteriorated to the point of becoming a safety concern".
It seems that these days "safety concern" is the institutional trump card.
Photographs of the demolished sculpture clearly reveal an interior of healthy red cedar.
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Photos courtesy of Bill Arnold and Dave Begley
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