ABSTRACT
In February 2010, the Olympics descended on Vancouver, British Columbia. Between athletes competing for gold and a provincial venue with the highest poverty rate in Canada, a clash of symbols arose: those deemed legitimate by the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) and those deemed illegitimate. The Games not only transformed the city’s landscape, municipal laws, infrastructure, and social relations but also resulted in the concurrent transformation of the city’s visual culture. As an explicit tactic, Aboriginal; antipoverty; environmental; anarchist; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender activists employed countersymbols to disrupt VANOC’s plans. Through qualitative discourse analysis of photos and visual imagery, this article addresses social, historical, political, and economic issues tied to this clash of symbols, including the use of Aboriginal cultures in representations of Canadian nationalism; infringements upon civil liberties and freedom of speech that resulted from surveillance of activists and constraints to the arts; and visual counter-discourse produced by activists through demonstrations, posters, and art.
