Tag: installation

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Arts Arts and Culture

Caitlin Dix captures tender moments in their monumental paintings

Caitlin Dix, detail of Tender Gardens, VAV Gallery. Photo by Shaghayegh Naderolasli.

Recently shown in Concordia’s VAV Gallery’s temporary exhibition Cycles of Existence, Dix shared their process and inspiration.

From Oct. 23 to Nov. 2, the Cycles of Existence exhibition at the VAV Gallery featured a number of Concordia’s Fine Arts students who explore the mysterious cycles and patterns of history in their work. 

“Growth, the seasons, emotions, our bodies, strife in the world, breathing, everything we know seems to exist in a cycle,” stated the VAV Gallery on their Instagram. “Cycles of Existence explores exactly this—the cyclical nature of life, either in the subconscious, the physical, or the abstract.”

Caitlin Dix currently studies at the undergraduate level of the Concordia visual arts program. The Concordian spoke with the artist at the VAV’s opening reception for Cycles of Existence about their own installation, Tender Gardens.

Dix described their work as the display of archived family moments that captures their deep connection with nature through gardening, food preparation and sharing food with their family. Dix’s artistic practice encapsulates their childhood nostalgia, family heritage and generational practices. The ritualistic relationship that food has to family and nature emerges as a central theme in Tender Gardens. 

In this exhibition, they represent the women of their family, particularly their grandmother and mother, as modern-day gatherers—the active sustainers of the community and their family. Dix said that appreciating and caring for nature is inseparable from their family’s traditions. 

The installation involved three larger-than-life unstretched canvases, suspended from the ceiling. Broad strokes of bright colors—greens, blues and purples with the occasional orange or red detail—draw the viewer into a scene of Dix’s family members in a garden. The inviting work is meant to be fully immersive, where the viewer becomes a part of the scene in front of them—Dix’s grandmother smiles at them. 

Caitlin Dix, detail of Tender Gardens, VAV Gallery. Photo by Shaghayegh Naderolasli.

An interesting experience awaits viewers as they navigate through the installation. When standing in front of the pieces, viewers encounter a clear image of the scene and are invited to imagine themselves standing in the garden before them. The use of fiber materials to create textural illusions is incorporated into all three paintings, offering a multi-sensorial experience with objects, nature, and figures. 

Moving around to the reverse side of the canvas, the image becomes murky—a ghostly impression of the paint seeping through the canvas. This blurry version of the scene appears almost like a memory, creating a temporal distance between the viewer and the subject of the painting. The relationship between the two sides of the installation speaks to the passage of time; the time between witnessing a moment and seeking to remember it months or perhaps years later.

Caitlin Dix, detail of the reverse side of Tender Gardens, VAV Gallery. Photo by Shaghayegh Naderolasli.

See more of Caitlin Dix’s work on their Instagram account: @caitlin_dix_art.

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Arts

Exhibition review: Outside the Palace of Me

Outside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA - Photo/Jiawei HONG

Shary Boyle’s exploration of the connection between society and the individual

This is a special show — the Toronto-based artist Shary Boyle has designed her exhibition on a stage setup at the Montreal Museum of Fine arts.

The moment visitors walk into the exhibition, they are standing in the middle of a huge stage. This implies that each individual not only observes society, but also participates in it. Shary Boyle’s artwork exposes a variety of phenomena in this society that we choose to ignore, which poses complex and sometimes paradoxical questions to visitors about our understanding of human nature.

The first sculpture visitors see is “The Potter”. It depicts an image of an artist’s process of making porcelain. However, the interesting thing is that this artist does not have a head, and there are six different porcelain pieces stacked up in front of them. Upon closer inspection, each piece has a different style that represents a different country. From the bottom up, they are China, Ghana, France, Greece, Peru, and Egypt.

Outside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA – Photo/Jiawei HONG
Outside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA – Photo/Jiawei HONG

Boyle is also very strict in the selection of materials: terracotta, porcelain, underglaze, china paint, luster, and brass rods were all used in her installation.

The headless artist of “The Potter” is captured making a gesture of lifting the porcelain as if they are trying to put these civilizations on their own head. This is a reflection of us being in a culturally diverse society. It also represents the ideology of each culture within society.

“Oasis,” another piece on display, is a woman sculpture that has both male and female sexual attributes. Although her face is covered by her hair, she is sitting sideways and presenting her sexuality in a confident pose. 

The idea of gender nonconformity created by this sculpture explores the people who break the gender norms that are expected for them. Her sexual organs look slicker than other parts of her body, because Shary Boyle uses luster as a representation of the gender stereotype, which is a beautiful and fragile material. This work poses the question to the viewer — why should the gender stereotypes in our minds be so solid?

Moving to the right side of the stage, visitors see a huge white statue sitting on the right side of the room, named “White Elephant”. Its whole body is painted and dressed in white. It is staring forward with no emotional expression on its face.

Outside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA – Photo/Jiawei HONG
Outside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA – Photo/Jiawei HONG

In a flash, its head suddenly turns around. Many viewers were shocked by this art installation, while others did not even notice its movement. According to Boyle, the title is inspired by the proverb “elephant in the room,” which refers to the phenomenon of people ignoring a very obvious fact. 

Shary Boyle sarcastically illustrates the whiteness of society, in which many politicians are aware of history of genocide, and the white privilege but choose to ignore it. The white elephant stands out in this dimly-lit exhibition room. According to my personal understanding, white has the ability to embrace any colour, just as this society can embrace any distinct being.

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Arts

LACUNA-LACUNE exhibition showcases raw materials and natural shapes

On Oct. 1, Andréanne Abbondanza-Bergeron’s LACUNA-LACUNE opened at Concordia’s FOFA gallery. The solo exhibition features a series of photographs displayed in the gallery’s vitrines, and two other installations in its main space. In her work, the artist contrasts the use of industrial materials like rope, steel, and glass, with references to nature and organic patterns front and centre.

The exhibition concludes a long creative process for Abbondanza-Bergeron, one that started before the pandemic. LACUNA-LACUNE was supposed to be presented last year, but the delay impacted the artist’s creative process. The photographs that are now part of the exhibition were taken during the pandemic, when the artist began to take walks in the forest. These photographs present human waste in natural spaces. One of them shows pieces of blue glass invading a natural environment that is composed of moss, grass, and rocks.

Abbondanza-Bergeron’s creative process is usually inspired by architecture, but it evolved in a different way this time. Nature became a central element of the show, influencing the final exhibition and the main installation. “This piece has something that has shifted a lot more towards the organic, towards […] something that for me is more influenced by the natural form,” she said. The artist explained that nature has always inspired her, but never in a way that was expressed in her art pieces.

The main space of the FOFA gallery is filled with a steel installation. This massive piece is composed of multiple steel ribbons, which are usually used to tie pallets together. The bands of steel are attached to the walls of the gallery and come down to the floor in an undulating fashion. Visitors are allowed to walk under the installation to appreciate it from another perspective.

Abbondanza-Bergeron explained that prior to creating this piece, she envisioned the tension that the large creation could put on visitors who looked at it from the front. When it was completed, she discovered that looking at the work from underneath managed to conjure the opposite feeling. “The interior became something quite different, more enveloping, more of a relief from all that tension,” she said, adding that it results in the viewer “actually just feeling protected and embraced.”

Lighting is also an important part of the main installation. The soft lights being used add texture to the steel. Under the installation, the ribbons’ shadows are interlaced, creating straight and curved lines on the floor. For Abbondanza-Bergeron, light is always an important part of her work, using it here to create a sense of weightlessness. She found a way to use light to reveal “the volume and the different stratas, the different cascading waves and […] to make that mass become more three-dimensional.”

The FOFA gallery’s black box, a closed room painted in black where artworks requiring dark lighting are presented, showcases another installation by Abbondanza-Bergeron. The art piece is composed of window screens hanging from the ceiling. Two panels of the thin screen-like material are put together and sway as the air in the room pushes them from side to side. Here, lighting also plays a crucial role, since the screen fabric under light produces wave-like patterns as it shines through the material. For Abbondanza-Bergeron, this work of art is a bridge between the photographs showcased in the gallery’s vitrines, and the larger installation piece, since it is made of industrial screen material while being “related more directly to natural shapes and the natural world.”

The catalogue of the exhibition will be launched on Nov. 4. “For me, having a catalogue is really nice to keep a piece alive a little longer,” she said. This exhibition and its catalogue are the conclusion of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art research fellowship that was granted to Abbondanza-Bergeron in 2017. The LACUNA-LACUNE exhibition will be open to the public until Nov. 5.

 

Photograph by Véronique Morin

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Ar(t)chives Arts

Art for a changing world

How the Harrisons’ multidisciplinary practice tackled environmental issues

Known as “the Harrisons,” Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison were trailblazers in the eco-art movement. Their collection ranged from manifestos to maps, and sculptural installations. If a viewer didn’t know, they might interpret their work as data rather than art.

The couple’s multidisciplinary practice, which ranged a variety of disciplines, explored forestry issues and urban renewal, among others. This led them to collaborate with biologists, urban planners, architects, and more.

What makes their work particularly fascinating is not solely the aesthetic aspect of it, but rather the fact that each piece could be viewed as a solution to ecological issues.

“Our work begins when we perceive an anomaly in the environment that is the result of opposing beliefs or contradictory metaphors,” they said, according to a statement on their studio’s website. “Moments when reality no longer appears seamless and the cost of belief has become outrageous offer the opportunity to create new spaces – first in the mind and thereafter in everyday life.”

In fact, in the 1960s, the couple pledged they would exclusively create art that involved environmental awareness and ecosystems.

The Harrisons offered a unique take on art and its purpose, demonstrating the ways in which society’s inclination towards beautiful things makes them more likely to care about important issues if they are exhibited in a tasteful way.

“All of the sudden people are looking at the environment in one way or another, and they’re looking differently,” said Helen in a video of their sculpture Wilma the Pig. “In other words, it’s bringing their attention in a way that is meaningful.’”

The work was displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles for their 2012 exhibition Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974, a remake of one of their earlier installations titled Hog Pasture, wherein the creative duo recreated a small live pasture within the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They had intended on bringing a hog into the space, however, the museum refused.

Among their other large-scale projects is The Force Majeure (2007 to present). The ongoing series is a manifesto for the present and the future and offers proposals to adapt to a changing world.

In fact, the Harrisons started the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a research centre that enables the collaboration between artists and scientists in an effort to design projects that respond to climate change.

Despite art being often deemed unimportant, the Harrisons’ works and legacy demonstrate the ways in which art can serve as an alternative way of discussing important issues.

“Why not artists?” reads a statement on the Centre’s website. “Art is the court of last resort – and our best hope.”

 

Visuals courtesy of Taylor Reddam.

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Arts

Cercanía: All the different ways to bring people together

Rafael Lozano Hemmer’s newest exhibition is all about human connection

I entered Arsenal Contemporary Art on a sunny September day looking for a refreshing escape from reality during this pandemic, and that is exactly what I got.

Arsenal’s imposing building swallows you whole and spits you out after giving you a new experience. At least, that has happened to me every time I’ve visited, and this time was no exception.

When I entered the gallery space, there was no room for small thoughts, small artwork,  or small expectations. It was the perfect setup for an exhibition of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s work.

Blinded by the sunlight that illuminates the main hall of the gallery, my transition to the temporary exhibition was abrupt and numbing, in a good way. The entire right wing of the giant building is dark and furnished with Lozano-Hemmer’s artifacts, inventions, creations, innovations, tricks and treats to the senses. In other words: Art (with a capital ‘A’).

I made sure to take a picture next to the title of the exhibition: Cercanía. Through this souvenir, I can later savour the delicacy of that specific word in Spanish. The word literally translates to ‘proximity’ or ‘closeness’ but cercanía is much more than that, and denotes a sense of human connection beyond physical presence that is untranslatable. It is intimacy, vulnerability and honesty. And that is what the exhibition is all about.

Cercanía has been very judiciously adapted and created around COVID-19 protocols. Even though every piece is meant to be experienced while adhering to the two-metre social distancing rule, I felt connected to everyone that has passed through it and those who will pass later.

I walked to the main room where different rays, projections, screens, and spotlights created light and played with the senses. One of them had sensors that followed and projected my steps and shadows, combining them with those of other visitors. Another took a picture of my face and overlapped it with the faces of others creating new identities, connections and funny faces.

Another one captured my heartbeat through a camera — I didn’t even need to touch a thing — and placed me in a virtual space where I could communicate with other heartbeats around the world.

The piece in the corner translated data from people murdered by guns in North America into an inverted noose that vibrated every ten seconds. I wished it wouldn’t move at all.

The installation in the other room ephemerally recreated my portrait on water mist in the most magical way. I did it at least five times until I noticed people waiting in line behind me. My misty portrait stayed for others to see, so, actually, it is not that ephemeral.

The big work blinded me, in a way that was different from how the sun does. There were movement sensors that detected me approaching the two giant screens filled with random letters. As soon as I walked, they followed me. I lay on the ground facing this “tableau vivant” and let letters arrange, move and fill the space before me, under me, next to me and above me, until I saw sentences form and disappear in the same way they had come. I stayed until I got dizzy.

My favourite piece, Field Atmosphonia,  welcomed me to lay on the ground again and look up at over 2000 speakers (2304 to be exact) suspended from the high ceilings of the Arsenal. I didn’t care that the ground was cold because I heard the ensemble of arranged individual sounds coming from each one and it was mesmerizing. The experience was visual, audible, presential, intuitive, interactive, confronting and vulnerable. I wouldn’t expect less from Lozano-Hemmer.

I left the space while the speakers behind me resonated with the sounds of waterfalls, birds, children laughing and a breeze rustling through trees. As I walked away and increased the distance between me and Cercanía, I thought about the ways in which we can be close while being apart.

Due to government safety measures, Cercanía has been suspended until further notice. Learn more about Cercanía and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s work at https://cercania.ca/

 

Photos courtesy of Jean-Charles Labarre.

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Arts

Happening in and around the white Cube this week…

Can construction and art overlap?

I’ve always been obsessed with abandoned and dilapidated buildings in “safe” neighbourhoods, and the way construction sites just pop up out of nowhere, only to leave a big mess. Nothing is more beautiful to me than a building’s skeleton up against a flat blue sky. I walk around the city taking photos of the tops of buildings against such a blue sky, sometimes I turn them into drawings, but I’ve never really thought about it much.

Last week, I was walking up the stairs in the library to return a book and was taken aback by what I thought was construction taking place on the wall facing the stairs, where people tend to sit on the floor and finish their uncovered drinks and snacks. I noticed that it was in fact, not a two-person construction crew, but a conservation team updating the public art piece that extends from LB’s lobby throughout the building.

But what made this seem like construction? It could have been a performance piece. You never really know unless you talk to the artists.

Not long afterwards, I was passing by the FOFA Gallery in the EV building and noticed they were installing the new exhibition. Large pieces of drywall leaned against the vitrine and the floor was covered in plastic and spotted with buckets. A team was busy working away, patching walls and removing the old work. I thought about how interesting that was, them installing in the vitrine. They could be the art.

I wasn’t too far off with this. As a couple days later, I passed by again and noticed the large slabs (now covered in pink sludge,) plastic and buckets were still there, and the gallery was open.

It didn’t take me long to accept the piece as an ingenious—although highly wasteful—installation. The slabs of drywall were bare before. The pink sludge was spread across the surface specifically for this work. Would the artist reuse these panels in another exhibition? What would happen to the pieces?

MFA student, Lauren Chipeur’s s e e p a g e / s u i n t e m e n t came to be from a similar wavelength. After a happy accident in her studio, when Chipeur’s fridge leaked onto a material exploration, the artist began her infatuation with the removal (and spread) of one substance with another.

I like this kind of process-based work, when the act of making and that of installing becomes a performance in and of itself. And there is no good reason it shouldn’t be. (I later found out that Chipeur’s installation seeped out through the vitrine and into the carpet on the other side—amazing. And her website is still under construction, also very on brand here.)

 

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Arts

New exhibition occupies indoor and outdoor space

Works by Corina Kennedy, Adrian Norvid, Erin Weisgerber, Andrew Forster and Erín Moure make up the FOFA Gallery’s newest collection, La Rentrée. Photo by Kirubel Mehari.

Experience four distinct installations in the FOFA Gallery’s La Rentrée

Like reading through someone’s journal or overlapping streams of thought, the Faculty of Fine Arts (FOFA) Gallery welcomes students back to school with La Rentrée, featuring the work of four Concordia artists and a local poet in four distinct installations.

Corina Kennedy, a graduate of Concordia’s studio arts program, contributed her piece, titled Tender for All. It features carved characters that mimic the way lettering is traditionally carved into the marble walls of old-fashioned banks. The artist explores “limited, disjointed and repetitive language” in an imitation of the way debt collectors communicate with their clients. Kennedy’s insulation foam installation is massive, occupying the entirety of  the York Corridor Vitrine, by the entrance of the gallery.

After having shown Tender for All in a studio space in New York, Kennedy found that tailoring the insulation foam to fit the York Corridor Vitrine was a new challenge. “The sheer length and foot traffic around it is gratifying enough,” Kennedy said. “But seeing it behind that glass is really delighting [to] me because insulation foam is something that is supposed to get hidden behind a wall. So the glass is just the opposite of that.”

Since graduating in 2007, Kennedy has accumulated her share of student debt, so she wanted to express the stress associated with that. She added that the struggles of “many viewers […] with student debt” may be reflected in this work. The artist imagined passersby will only stop at her piece for a moment before moving on, because so many people put off confronting their debt.

Inside the gallery, Concordia painting and drawing professor Adrian Norvid’s collection of drawings and paper sculptures dominate the space. Sprawled across the walls, The Bejesus explores Norvid’s thought process during his creative endeavours in a crude, comical way. His other piece, The Black Bumhole Opera is at the centre of the installation, and explores the “dirty” and “grimey” culture surrounding heavy metal music.

In a separate room from Norvid’s display, Erin Weisgerber’s piece, Minerva’s Owl, explores a variety of film processes. By capturing New York’s Kodak tower through three different types of film, the Concordia graduate intended to show her viewers a raw, playful approach to cinematography. One example of this is Weisgerber’s decision to keep all glitches with the camera and film in the piece. The film loops through cycles of day and night, which are projected onto a wall. The space between the projector and the wall is divided by three mesh screens, enabling the viewer to walk between them and experience the different film techniques to interpret the piece.

Outside the gallery and spanning the facade of the Engineering and Visual Arts (EV) building is Andrew Forster, a part-time studio arts teacher, and Erín Moure’s contribution. Paraguayan Sea presents an excerpt of Brazilian writer Wilson Bueno’s book of the same name. The large, yellow banner of text stretches across the outside of the building, catching the viewer’s eye as they walk past.

Andrew Forster and Erín Moure’s contribution to the exhibition is called Paraguayan Sea (pictured here). Photos by Kirubel Mehari.

Bueno’s original text was written in three languages: Portuguese, Spanish and Guaraní. Moure, a local poet and translator, incorporated the original Guaraní text into the piece and translated the Portuguese and Spanish parts into English and French. By doing so, not only did Moure make this beautiful text available for English and French speakers, but she also emphasized the diverse cultures within Montreal.

The creative process behind the project was twofold; Moure provided the translation of the text while Forster designed the final product. In his colleague’s words, Forster became “intrigued by the text and by the nature of a polylingual text as ‘skin.’” Forster then took this idea and decided to bring it to the public by “laminating it to architecture.”

Paraguayan Sea interrupts the noisy advertisements on Ste-Catherine Street and explores public speaking, surface, depth and the utility of art in a public space. The text itself has been described by the artists as “a murmur heard in the streets of a city at all times.” The translated version of Paraguayan Sea has been published and will be available for purchase at the FOFA Gallery on Nov. 9 during a discussion panel of the artists’ work. Both Forster and Moure will be present at the event.

The indoor exhibitions at the FOFA Gallery are open Monday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Oct. 20. Paraguayan Sea is open 24 hours and will be up until Dec. 8. Admission is free.

Feature photo by Kirubel Mehari

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Arts

The Celestial Tree inspires visions of collective action

Concordia alumnus, Skawennati, uses her piece, The Celestial Tree, to inspire visions of collective action. Photo by Mackenzie Lad.

Walk along the Promenade Fleuve-Montagne as Montreal’s history unfolds in Path of Resilience

Telling a story of transcendence, Path of Resilience presents three works spread out along the new Promenade Fleuve-Montagne created by Indigenous artists Maria Hupfield, Nadia Myre, and Concordia’s own BFA design graduate, Skawennati.

Commissioned by DHC/ART’s managing director and curator, Cheryl Sim, and established for Montreal’s 375th anniversary, the Promenade Fleuve-Montagne allows pedestrians to discover the city’s historical landmarks and public artworks.

Hupfield’s piece, Ka Pow !, can be found directly outside of the Square Victoria metro station, catching the attention of passersby. Inspired by comic book art, Hupfield arranged white cedar benches into action bubbles around a tree.

Maria Hupfield starts off the Path of Resilience with Ka Pow !, an interactive sculpture aiming to unite passersby and inspire dialogue. Photo by Chloё Lalonde.

A few blocks further along the promenade, Myre’s piece illuminates the trees behind the St-Patrick Basilica with a string of fairy lights. The space is inviting. Wooden chairs are grouped together to form a strong sense of community, while the heart-wrenching story of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a young black slave who was tried and convicted for arson based on a widespread rumour in the 18th century, is narrated from a sound system in the trees. The piece, titled Histoire Revenue, reminds us of Montreal’s past injustices, forcing us to be aware of all the anguish held within this land.

Skawennati’s piece is much further along the path, sitting in front of the Royal Victoria Hospital at the corner of Pine Avenue West and McTavish Street. The Celestial Tree is at the highest altitude of the Promenade Fleuve-Montagne. “I wanted to take the image of She Falls for Ages—which is the central image of Skyworld, a very important image in Iroquois cosmology and Iroquois traditional stories—and put it in the city, using materials and processes that are [as] recognisable as the city,” the artist said.

The body of the tree is a large stop sign post, and it’s branches are thick pieces of metal coated in reflective paneling.

The installation refers to the Concordia alumna’s upcoming machinima (a new media production), She Falls for Ages. As a way of opposing modern animation aesthetics, Skawennati chose to work with Second Life. Similar to Sims, the platform allows for immense creative freedom under some technical limitation. This approach is entirely specific to the artist’s body of work. When she began using the platform in 2007, Second Life, a “massively multiplayer online world” otherwise known as a virtual environment, really represented the future of modern social interaction. To be released in October 2017, She Falls for Ages will be a feminist, futuristic, utopian retelling of the First Nations’s creation story.

Today, many Indigenous stories are not known by their own people. Skawennati said she believes everyone should be familiar with them, as these stories are the foundation of the city of Montreal. The story of Skyworld, otherwise known as the First Nations’s creation story, adds a dimension to the Iroquois people and heritage that is not widely known, she explained. The Iroquois are often seen as warriors, fighters and troublemakers, and in Skawennati’s words, “knowing the creation story allows you to understand that it’s all about peace and love for creation”.  

The six bright colours of the flowers depicted on The Celestial Tree match the skin tones of the citizens of Skawennati’s Skyworld. By using these colours, she said she wants to call all people, no matter their race, to seek awareness and fight for a brighter, inclusive future. Skawennati strives to inspire collective action, providing various visions of what could be, while on her own path of learning more about her Mohawk heritage.

In the most common version of their story, the people of Skyworld live quietly and happily, knowing nothing of death and inequality. Instead, their day-to-day lives revolve around the maintenance of the Celestial Tree. The tree sits inside a hole to the universe, and provides light to all the land, according to the myth.

In the original story, one of the sky women realises she is pregnant. Her husband, the guardian of the Celestial Tree, becomes so angry that he rips the tree from its roots, revealing the massive hole in the universe. Curious, Sky Woman, peers into the hole and her husband pushes her in.

In She Falls for Ages, the Celestial Tree grows weak, and the people of Skyworld know that their time is coming to an end. The Celestial Tree guardian’s wife, here named Otsitsakáion, volunteers to jump into the abyss with child and serve as the seed of the new world.

In all versions of the story, Sky Woman “falls for ages,” eventually landing on the backs of geese, who place her on the back of a turtle. At this time, the Earth was simply water, devoid of land, and Sky Woman makes it her duty to create it. With the help of small animals, she was eventually able to grow shrubbery. As time passed, Turtle Island grew from a small mound of dirt on a turtle’s back, into what we now know as North America.

On display until Nov. 30, Path of Resilience tells a story of transcendence. The installations start by gathering people of all kinds together, encouraging them to acknowledge the history of the place in which they live—a necessary process in moving towards a unified future.

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News

Experimenting in the public space

Photo by Paula Monroy

In his Public Space and the Public interest Class, Soukwan Chan, a professor from the university’s department of geography, planning and environment, assigned his students to come up with a multidisciplinary project in three weeks to encourage interaction between strangers in different public areas by using the urban settings themselves as a stimulator.

Photo by Paula Monroy

Of the ideas, Chan asked the class to rate the ones which stood out, and the students favoured the Nov. 20 public library installation set up on the corner of Guy St. and de Maisonneuve Blvd, which cost the group $50 and consisted of a bookshelf holding over 150 books, a sofa and two chairs.

Concordia urban planning students set up a library installation on the university’s campus in an effort to stimulate human interaction in public space, impressing fellow students by making use of the space and getting strangers to interact with one another.

“Sometimes artists create public art that is just there to decorate, and it’s not meaningful to the place,” said team member Elizabeth Thongphanith. “The comfortable setting of the library, we thought, would spark interaction with the built environment.”

The library setting was meant to play up the “democratic nature of public libraries,” said team member Patrick Serrano. He explained the group theorized that the majority of users would be students coming from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

Based on their data, the group counted 156 users throughout the 13 hours of the installation. While the group expected 28 per cent of users would engage in conversation, 7 per cent ended up doing so.

The group attributed their results to climatic factors, believing there were less users due to the cold weather. A time-lapse video was also produced, which includes interviews with those who used the space.

“[People] want to see more, not exactly this experiment, but a better use of the great space we have that nobody uses. People liked the idea that finally something new and interesting was happening,” said group member Brett Hudson.

Chan explained the projects showed the importance of building more possibilities for interaction in the public space. “We are concerned about others less and less,” said Chan. “We rely more on the virtual world than networks to communicate, to connect. … The stores that have automated doors, for instance, have eliminated even the smallest possibilities for interaction.”

The groups came up with a wide variety of projects, including a farting machine designed to force awkwardness at main street intersections and notes seemingly written by secret admirers or friendly unknowns the students then passed to strangers in an effort to evaluate gender interaction.

“In all these experiments we realize that people are comfortable with spaces,” said Chan. “But there’s value in trying to break those bubbles and to try to get people to interact with each other.”

 

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