Toronto artist channels anger over Trump's 51st state rhetoric into speculative public art series

A Toronto artist has been building and placing speculative plaques at points throughout the city, which she hopes will serve as a dark warning while inspiring people to contemplate on the fragility of nationhood.  

Dara Vandor said the inspiration for the collection of aluminum signs came about in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated threats to absorb Canada as the 51st state.

"It started off with a lot of anger after Donald Trump said that he would annex Canada, make it the 51st state, and it made me just wildly angry," Vandor told CBC News on Sunday. 

"I thought, you know, what would that look like? What would that look like for us if our nation was all of a sudden taken over and absorbed into our neighbour? And so this series came about as a sort of alternate reality vision around the city that uses the city as its canvas."

In the series, titled Pax Americana, Vandor uses the plaques to share a future based on past events in the city — though none of the plaques last longer than a few weeks before getting taken down or stolen, Vandor said. 

One plaque, titled Surrender of the Tecumseth Irregulars, 2025, includes the inscription: "Near this site, approximately one hundred local Canadian irregulars surrendered to United States Patriot liberation forces on the eleventh of August, 2031. After weeks of urban warfare, most of the surrounding neighbourhood was destroyed. Many of the buildings you see here now were reconstructed as part of the Musk Plan, and resettled under the New 1812 Act."

Vandor said the overall project is a reminder of how fragile nations are.

"Some of them are small, some of them are bigger. Everything from surrendering forces … to one with Ivanka Trump making a great speech about joining our two nations together," she said.

"I think we took the Canadian border as something set in stone and it's not, it's all artificial… I think Donald Trump has reminded us of what we have and what we don't have." 

Vandor said she started the project while on maternity leave, noting that hanging the plaques was something she could do with the baby's stroller.

"We would just roll out and put them up, which was so nice. The stroller is the most convenient artistic tool I've ever had in my life," she said, adding that the plaques are not meant to be permanent fixtures.

"Some of them stayed up for a long time [and] some of them got taken down really quickly," she said, adding "I don't know who took them. If they have them, I'll happily sign them for them." 

As of Sunday afternoon only one plaque remained, which was posted that same day. 

Historian says project is 'very clever'

Historian Camille Bégin said Vandor's project is a "very clever" one, which presents a future that is already a past in the way it's written. 

"It really shows us that the future is not written, that it's in our hands to act in the present to forge the future that we want," Bégin told CBC News.

"Especially on the eve of the federal election, I think it pushes us to go vote — however we vote, we have a say in the future of our country, because this project is also obviously a political one that reflects on the geopolitical situation between Canada and the U.S.

"I really like how it uses the play between the past and the future for us to act in the present," Bégin added.

Bégin said the project is a reminder to people not to take the country's borders and the peace they enjoy for granted.

"As we've seen with all the talk of annexation coming from the U.S. president, our peaceful land border … between Canada and the U.S. could quickly not be so peaceful, and if you follow what the U.S. president says, could not be a border anymore."