Jason St. Laurent is a performance artist as well as a curator and an arts programmer and is currently Club Coordinator at the SAW Gallery in Ottawa, Canada. St. Laurent artistic practice addresses works with existing public monuments and structures. His response to public monuments comment on modern society; construction of shared histories; and further references to how each of these are recalled within the public domain. He may be noted for his performance works which draw and parody the social and political systems; however, St. Laurent's current work in development engages how to interact with the. The creation of the monument, St. Laurent remarks, is "filled with discourse and politics and it is not something that gets done single-handedly."1 Jason St. Laurent's performance-based work thus try to affect perception of public spaces and how each are occupied. He selects to co=opt himself and often physically adds himself as an additional element to public sculptures. Such interventions, St. Laurent Hopes, will bring new meaning to public monuments; he follows in the traditions of avant-garde performance art. His reluctance to document his performances or insertions into public space as an architectural element also builds on a history of performance art.

St. Laurent uses performance art to affect the public who, as viewers, may be unaware that a performance is occurring before them. For a performance piece done in Vancouver, British Columbia, called Locator, St. Laurent created an upright, black, minimalist box, which he occupied. The box had wheels and St. Laurent then walked through Vancouver's Eastside neighbourhood as a dark and moving black sculpture through an area of downtown Vancouver known for being overlooked given its drug and alcohol addicted street residents. This performative gesture, offering an artwork to the downtown residents, St. Laurent recalled as "a memorial to the forgotten." This action became a temporary memorial monument for the many that have died in the neighbourhood. The work was a commentary on the addiction and death occurring in this ignored neighbourhood which once was of Vancouver's main economic districts in the past.

St. Laurent's performative piece, Locator, also references Robert Morris', Untitled (Standing Box),(1961). In the latter piece, a pine coffin-like box was utilised in which, "[Morris] performed the box by standing inside of it."2 Morris' work, like St. Laurent's, references minimalist sculpture making viewers aware of their surroundings as well as the absence of the human body. This action thereby allows viewers to be aware of their own body in space. These two artists both contain themselves in coffin like boxes that are performed. St. Laurent like Morris "performs the box" by moving around in it and occasionally falling over. This falling over, in the box, mimics the death of the local residents and the death of a monument that the area would never see. Locator also comments on the poverty, malnourishment, addiction and homelessness; people who die penniless and homeless on the street usually cannot afford a proper burial or coffin and are placed in a cardboard box, as oppose to the more expensive wood and metal coffins. The impoverished are often cremated and left to be reclaimed by distant family members who in many cases may never show up to this assign responsibility.

St. Laurent's work brings up issues about the placement of the monument in the public realm. Generally cities do not place monuments in economically poorer civic districts because in part these areas are kept hidden and are not seen as viable attraction areas. Locator may be considered problematic for institutional spaces given the work is seen in a select local area and does not privilege other audiences beyond Vancouver's Downtown Eastside although people who experienced this action may have been surprised by its, responding potentially with fear, hostility or curiosity to the sight of a black coffin moving through their neighbourhood. St. Laurent was invited to create and perform this piece at the Western Front in Vancouver's Eastside. The performative action was filmed from a distance as he performed Locator from an appointed position in East Vancouver and back to the Western Front Gallery over a course of several days, he performed the same action.

The only component that St. Laurent will exhibit from this performative action in the gallery is the black coffin-like structure. When the performance relic is exhibited in the gallery, a discourse arises which extends the work to larger audiences beyond the originating Eastside community, where the documentation of the work took place. The residents of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside community are aware of death, poverty, and other social injustice in their area. People beyond the Eastside can become engaged and to an extent educated about these social tragedies present in areas close to home. St. Laurent's work was conceived to increase social awareness about different economic divisions present in the city of Vancouver, although ultimately, this piece could be performed in any large metropolitan centre.

Footnotes:
1 Busby, Cathy. "Jason St. Laurent Interview." Artist to Artist. Conducted June 4, 2003. Records of artist.
2 Schimmel, Paul. Out of Action: Performance and the Object, 1949-1979. Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson/ MOMA LA, 1998: 90.