Exhibit Chronicles More Than a Century
By Michael Harris
The Vancouver Sun,
Monday, November 17,2003

There is one building left now. The rest of Woodlands has been gradually
de-institutionalized. Funny word, that: de-institutionalized. An awfully complicated way to say "kicking people out of their homes."

As artist Michael de Courcy drives his pickup through the ghost town of Woodlands in New Westminster, he points out one of the few remaining residents, sitting on a park bench. This man spends every day there, all day. He stares quietly at the wall of a makeshift shelter. He has been relocated to group homes several times. And, every time, he walks home to Woodlands and his bench.

Not for much longer though.

De Courcy 's project, Asylum, on display at the New Westminster public
library's spacious gallery, is inspired by the hammering of a final nail in Woodland's coffin. The last building is shutting down and the bulldozers are on their way. What de Courcy discovered when he set out to create what he calls a "long, last look" at the institution is a complicated relationship between 64 acres of land and the thousands of residents who have called it home.

The original brick building was a "prison for the insane," founded in 1878 — a time when New Westminster was expected to be British Columbia's capital. De Courcy tracks the history of Woodlands from those roots, through the mid-20th century when it was New Westminster's largest employer, to the site's present state of ghostly disrepair.

His large-scale photographs, as a result, create a timeline and a portrait of public attitudes toward people with mental disabilities.

The rooms of the Woodlands institute are vacated in these shots — we are left with peeling wallpaper, a bit of curtain, some loose clues to the lives of past inhabitants.

These empty rooms, lit through barred windows, juxtapose with magazine-style portraits of the residents themselves.

Here is Catherine Kiell, a resident from age 12 to 32 (1968 to 1988). She
holds a long tube of coffee cups, fitted neatly into each other. These are tokens from return visits to Woodlands. It 's been a decade since she left the institute, but Kiell insists on coming back each weekend. Every visit, she drinks a coffee and adds the empty cup to her tower.

De Courcy has captured something important here. A volatile excommunication is underway.

But why? Woodlands is sitting on killer real estate, for one. The massive waterfront property, five minutes from the Skytrain, has been sold by the government to condo developers. The land is likely worth upwards of a $100 million.

British Columbia Building Corporation, on behalf of the provincial government, hosted several meetings at the city 's council chambers to discuss the latest plan for the land. De Courcy was present, as a citizen and as an artist.

Included in the resulting exhibit is the text of a deposition read at those meetings. On a hand-made podium, de Courcy has supplied us with a few words written by an anonymous ex-Woodlands resident. He leads for handicapped access at the new condos and for lower income housing where his wife and he might live.

Perhaps, as this is a show about home, the last word should go to someone who lived there. Here is an excerpt from that man's deposition: "The people who I used to live with when I was in Woodlands are sleeping underneath a bridge. They 're sleeping on a sidewalk."

Michael Harris is a Vancouver freelance writer.