Platforms: The Teachers Among Us invited emerging and mid-career artists to nominate senior artists who have mentored, taught, or profoundly influenced their artistic journey. Following a citywide nomination and adjudication process, 20 senior artists were selected to create new works to be showcases across civic art platforms. These pieces reflect the importance of mentorship and the intergenerational relationships that helped shape Vancouver’s vibrant art scene.

This image was taken in Rouen, France, in 1995 while I was teaching in Paris. It has sat in my archive as an unfinished potential image/text project. When I was invited earlier this year to join Platforms: The Teachers Among Us and learned that a bus shelter ad space could serve as a potential site for a proposal, I immediately thought of this staged image of a middle-aged man yawning on a bus stop bench. I loved the diachronic and synchronic nature of "completing" this work in 2025, thirty years later, and more than 8000 flight kilometers from where the picture was taken. Who hasn't waited for a bus? Who, especially among working people, hasn't waited for a bus? Waiting can be both anxious and boring. The picture was taken on a cloudy day after rain, which is typical in Vancouver.

Regarding the title, after starting this project, I took my son Linus to see a restored 70 mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey at an arthouse cinema near my home in the Philadelphia suburbs. The film begins with the iconic "The Dawn of Man" sequence, showing ape-like hominids in prehistoric Africa. When I saw the words "The Dawn of Man" appear on the screen, I instantly knew what the title of my work for Platforms: The Teachers Among Us would be.