Hills of Home explores the liminal space between the reality and the lore of Drumheller, Alberta through photography, artifacts and archival research. As a former centre for coal-mining in the Canadian hinterland, Drumheller shifted away from natural resource extraction after the discovery of dinosaur fossils and remains in the early twentieth century. A rapid economic refocus to tourism in the region has instilled a strong civic identity in the town, with many residents embracing the prehistoric themes, inspiring some to trim the landscaping on their front lawns into dinosaur shapes. Others lament the change and cling to the coal-mining narratives throughout the town, remembering a past glossed over in the pursuit of attracting visitors.

This series is being produced with the collaboration of Frederic Bigras-Burrogano under the name of our collective, Long Distance Call.

Long Distance Call is an artist collective consisting of Frederic Bigras-Burrogano, a Francophone Montreal-born artist and conceptual landscape photographer, and Marianne R. Williams, an art librarian. Our collaborative practice focuses on the use of photography, research, digital cartography and 3D printing to investigate the liminalities of documentation, identity, and primary source materials.

We have exhibited at Les Territoires (Montréal, Canada), Der Greif, a process 2.0 at the Krakow Photography Festival (Krakow, Poland) and at the Chinese European Art Center (Xiamen, China). Our images were published in the photography magazine Young Shot (Exeter, England) and we have delivered lectures at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Canada (Calgary, Canada), the University of Toronto, Xiamen University (Xiamen, China) and Champlain College (Saint-Lambert, Canada). Most recently, we were awarded a Creation and Research Grant from the Quebec Art Council.