It’s a Canadian affair, this Domestication of Distance. Its also the title of an exhibit on at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Beyond Measure: Domesticating Distance, on now until January 2016. It’s ostensibly about the immigrant experience but it is more. Crossing borders, boundaries, cultures is the stuff of the newcomer but in this wide country it is also the stuff of the resident. Beyond Measure: Domesticating Distance is presented in association with the South Asian Visual Arts Centre and features five contemporary artists, Meera Margaret Singh, Surendra Lawoti, Abdullah M. I. Syed, Asma Sultana, Tazeen Qayyum. The exhibit explores the composition of duality, the coupling of the two and the resulting oneness of the hybrid. The show has been curated by Ambereen Siddiqui and Linda Jansma of the McLaughin Gallery The RMG hosts a Douglas Coupland sculpture on its outer wall. It is a tribute to Painters 11 but it utilizes Coupland’s concentric circles imagery. They look like targets but they are transmitters. They communicate over distance. They are symbols, they bring two solitudes into one sphere. It’s a Canadian thing, bringing the two sides together, whether it’s the zipper, the bra, the Blackberry, the Telephone or many other inventions, this country is built by joining two extremes together, doing so fast. Speed is the thing, its cold, its wild, pass fast, use the boards, use the borders, skip over the middle. The need for speed is the source of Hockey and the canoe. Get there quicker, get the message there faster, snap, snap, ziiiiiiiiip, done in a jiffy. The domestication of this dangerous vast emptiness known as Canada is ongoing. It’s a task for all who come here and all who live here. It’s survival of the fastest but to truly know this country, any country, any culture we must map the in-betweens and step back from the edges.