The film Tidal Pool by Curtis Grahauer represents New Brighton Park in Vancouver as a point of articulation between global industry and natural adaptation. The former salt marsh next to the Ironworker’s Memorial Bridge early on had a swimming pool that was filled by the tide. When the waters became polluted by industry, a new pool was built. Waterfowl adapted and settled in the pool through the winter months. Now there is an initiative to turn the edge back into a salt marsh. The film contemplates the site as a pivotal place of contestation between the natural and industrial forces of the coastal city.

In 1971, a health inspector deemed the water in the tidal pool located at New Brighton Park to be unsafe, due to industrial pollution in the Burrard Inlet. A new pool was built the following year and continues to be open to the public from May to September. For the rest of the year, the pool remains filled and waterfowl are allowed to use it, fenced off and protected from human disturbance. As natural processes adapt around sites of conservation as well as industrial sites, each one becomes naturalized in itself, blurring the area between the natural and the artificial. The turning point of anthropogenic influence can be seen as the moment at which an external dependency occurs, and environmental stewardship and conservation efforts to counteract the effects of industry are a prime example of this. New Brighton Park has been an institution of northeast Vancouver for over a century, but the park itself is in a state of change. There has been a recent proposal to reclaim the shore and field next to and including the tennis courts, to transform this area back into a salt marsh. The park’s location creates an ideal vantage point to frame the emblematic and historic aspects of Vancouver in the contemporary moment. Tidal Pool documents New Brighton Park in its contemporary state, as a point of articulation between natural adaptation and global industry.