Creative Subversions explores how whiteness and Indigeneity are articulated through images of Canadian identity -- and the contradictory and contested meanings they evoke. These benign, even kitschy, images, she argues, are haunted by ideas about race, masculinity, and sexuality that circulated during the formative years of Anglo-Canadian nationhood.
In this richly illustrated book, Margot Francis shows how national symbols such as the beaver, the railway, the wilderness of Banff National Park, and ideas about “Indianness” evoke nostalgic versions of a past that cannot be expelled or assimilated. Juxtaposing historical images with material by contemporary artists, she investigates how artists are giving these taken-for-granted symbols new and suggestive meanings.