The Pursuit of Excellence (1989) focuses on issues of racism in Canada. The first image is based on the fatal shooting of Wade Lawson, an unarmed black youth, in Toronto in 1988. He was shot in the back while driving away in a stolen vehicle. It was one of a series of shootings of blacks by police in Toronto in the 1980′s.
The second image is based on protests by the black community of a 1989 exhibition of artifacts collected, for the most part, by Canadian missionaries in Africa at the end of the 19th century. The exhibition used irony to place the objects in ‘context’. This and the lack of consultation with the black community precipitated the protest.