Brenda Pelkey: "... the great effect of the imagination on the world".

The author reviews an exhibition of Canadian photographer Brenda
Pelkey, entitled "... the great effect of the imagination on the
world". A series of panoramic Cibachromes, depicting 19
Saskatoon back yards adorned with miniature versions of the
Eifel Tower, trains, windmills, grottos and a host of Bambies.
Questions raised by the reviewer: The influence of the art
system with its coded processes of interpretation on the
perception of Pelkey's work; the notion of art as a celebration
of the personal; the history of the right to materialize the
private, indicating that the power of the elite is constructed
and maintained by privacy; the arbitrary notion of legitimized
culture as the singular domain of white, upper-class males.