Urbanization has shaped the course of human interaction, plaguing society with a sense of emptiness and lack of interpersonal contact.

Déjà déjà visité, meaning “already been visited,” combines the works of artists Mike Bayne, Jocelyn Purdie and Maayke Schurer at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (AEAC) to present a collective view of urbanized settings that depict a certain vacant quality.

The dreariness and loneliness of city life is captured in the series of Bayne’s photographs, which feature settings ranging from an empty parking lot to a laundromat. They reflect a “quiet crisis,” as stated on the AEAC’s website.

One photograph displays an Italian restaurant, looking cold and uninviting. The building is bare and nondescript, and there is a “Closed” sign visible in the window. Another photograph shows the welcome sign of a motel, reading “No Vacancy”, on which letters are falling from their places.

None of the photographs contain people, giving the impression that there isn’t much human contact in these types of settings. Bayne exaggerates a feeling of impersonal contact within urban cities by strategically capturing moments that evoke complete isolation.

Purdie employs cardboard puzzles and knitted wool as her mediums. These two everyday objects, which one usually associates with the comforts of home, are presented in a somewhat disfigured way.

The result is unsettling for the viewer. As we are urged to reconsider the familiar, it strips us of the self-assurance we usually feel in their presence.

The first collection of works is a series of cardboard puzzles that are mounted on a wooden board. All of the puzzles depict different landscapes with sections where pieces have been removed, displaying the white background of the board.

These blank spaces break up the image, drawing the viewer’s attention away from the view of the landscape. Schurer’s work completes the exhibit. A video projection depicts pieces of garbage disrupting the natural world.

Huge quantities of it float through water and overwhelm pieces of land. Schurer uses interesting foci and shots, which makes the image more abstract. At one point, the focus is so soft that colourful pieces of underwater garbage almost resemble fish.

The sketches demonstrate the artist’s ability to manipulate natural elements in the viewer’s mind. In one sketch, Schurer tentatively asks, “then it starts raining?” The artist’s control over the piece of art reflects the larger concern of man’s increasing control over the natural world.

There is a sense of irony behind each of the pieces.

The artists all draw on landscapes of some kind to exaggerate a break between the natural and the unnatural world. The exhibit successfully reflects the negative effect that urbanization has had on people’s relationship with their world.

Déjà déjà visité will be on display at the AEAC until Nov. 3.