Sven-Erik Ericksen
Hastings Street, North Side, Abbott to Carrall, 1973

Archival inkjet print, 2003
Signed, titled and dated on verso
Image: 13.5 cm x 122 cm
Edition 16/20

Estimate: $750

Svend-Erik Ericksen’s Hastings Street series of black and white panorama views were originally photographed in 1973 (and printed in 2003) as a backdrop for an animated film that was never made. It depicts storefronts on both the North and South sides of Hastings Street in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside from Columbia to Abbott Street. In the photograph, the quiet sidewalks are largely empty. Many of the building facades and much of the architecture in this image is still recognizable today. Ericksen’s remarkable work is prescient in its use of the panoramic format and its documentation of an important section of Vancouver’s urban landscape. In addition, these works could be said to foreshadow the much-lauded panoramic photographs of Vancouver-based artists such as Stan Douglas, Scott McFarland and Danny Singer.