'Fake Plastic Trees' exhibit explores 'Disneyfication' of Canadian landscapes

When Biliana Velkova came to Banff, Alta. for an artist in residence opportunity, she was struck by the natural beauty of the city surrounded by the Rocky Mountains -- but then something else captured her attention.

"What really struck me as very interesting was, the nature was beautiful, but it was really the troves of tourists taking it in through their media, through their cellphones and cameras and video cameras," said Velkova, who described it as a "disneyfication" attitude towards Canada.

"You take a picture and you've experienced Canada. Done. I don't have to climb a mountain."

'Fake Plastic Trees'

Those reflections inspired Velkova's latest exhibit — which includes photographs of her in various poses set against the backdrop of quintessential Canadian landscapes.

The exhibit is called 'Fake Plastic Trees', named after a song by English alternative rock band Radiohead that Velkova and her curator thought was particularly fitting.

It's part of the Capture Photography Festival, and is showing at Tartooful in North Vancouver until April 28.

Velkova told North by Northwest host Sheryl MacKay that seeing the rampant tourism and commercialism in Banff made her reflect on her own experiences growing up in communist Bulgaria.

She said she didn't have access to a lot of information or photographs of Canada in that sheltered environment, so she found she had a "dreamlike imagination" of what it would be like.

"I had made up this really magical fantasy of what North America or Canada would be like, and of course it's not like that in Canada."

Nature as a fantasy

One of her images in the exhibition has her wearing an extravagant dress while standing in a horse-drawn carriage in front of the Bow River in Alberta.

"I looked at the experience of tourists in Banff and I noticed that a lot of them get married in Banff and nature becomes their backdrop, and they would rent a horse and carriage," she said.

She said she was pleased with how the image turned out.

"It has such a beautiful feeling it's fake … it's like living that fantasy maybe I had as a kid growing up in Bulgaria, thinking that's what living in the west [is like]."

She said that people who saw her setting up for the photographs didn't seem that surprised, and seemed to just think it was "a fashion shoot in the Rockies."

"Again, that's another comment on how we've become so used to seeing that commercial interaction with nature."

With files from CBC's North by Northwest

To hear the full story listen to the audio labelled: B.C. artist explores the 'disneyfication' of Canada's landscapes in photo exhibit