Canada Picture No. 6 (skull and fish)

"These photographs... are called the Canada Pictures. I did 10 of them in 2 days and I shortened my life by about a year by doing all that so quickly. They're evocative of the old 19th century still lives by William Harnett or [John F.] Peto. By putting objects in a traditional format like the still life, it kind of takes them out of time. You expect to see violins and grapes and that sort of thing in still life. But when you see bologna or a nuclear power plant or hydro towers, it makes you realise that what we're living through right now is a transient moment in history as much as any other moment has been. And it's a way of looking at the present as though it was in the past."
—Douglas Coupland, speaking in the audio guide app that accompanied the Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition Douglas Coupland" everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything.

Through a wide range of media including assemblage, installation, painting, photography, sculpture and quilts, Coupland has persistently investigated Canadian cultural identity, both benign and menacing. Using imagery and objects latent with symbolic meaning for Canadians, he delineates what it means to be Canadian, offering a “secret handshake” not easily understood by others.