Isabelle Hayeur's video installation Fire with Fire (2010) seemingly sets a Vancouver building ablaze -- even bringing firetrucks, as the video below shows. The Montreal-based artist's work alludes to the history of the city's oldest neighborhood, one now in the throes of urban decay "plagued by social problems due to poverty." Set against the backdrop of rampant real-estate speculation leading up to the winter Olympics, the work addresses anxiety, destruction and perhaps rebirth. In her artist's statement, Hayeur writes:
It is striking that the history of the Downtown Eastside began in destruction and disappearance. In 1886, soon after the city was incorporated, the Great Vancouver Fire swept down on the neighbourhood and razed almost all of it to the ground. The video installation Fire with Fire recalls this troubled period of Vancouver’s history. It also alludes to the neighbourhood’s present conditions by reminding us that many lives have been consumed there, worn down by years of homelessness, drug use, street prostitution, and violence.
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