Abstract
This essay examines connections between protest camps and artist interventions in the Canadian context, focussing on two cases. In October 2011, Occupy Toronto organizers set up a protest camp in St. James Park as part of a global movement in 950 cities to decry the effects of global capitalism. Six months later, another collective set up an artistic occupation consisting of 200 A-frame tents called The Encampment at Fort York National Historic Site. This intervention recast the military fort, which conventionally operates as an open-air living history museum depicting the social and military history of the War of 1812, as a space that showcased the war’s civilian history. The author approaches each as a space of convergence dependent upon the calculated co-ordination of people and tents to signal calls for change. The author also takes into account significant differences between the two camps in that Occupy Toronto was a hard intervention that was ultimately evicted by order of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, while The Encampment was a soft one, co-commissioned by the city.
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