Bowmont Park opens

8 years in the making, our largest pilot project for Watershed+ is now open to the public, following its dedication to Dale Hodges yesterday by Mayor Nenshi.
What was once a contaminated gravel pit in Calgary, Alberta, has now been remediated and transformed into a 40 hectare natural space, park, public art work and stormwater facility.

Artworks on this scale are the work of many passionate and dedicated people form conception to construction. Design collaborators: O2 Planning + Design​, AECOM, Source2Source. Construction: Wilco Southwest.​
We are indebted to Calgary Parks​, Water Resources and Public art teams City of Calgary Arts and Culture​ for their the vision, generosity and relentless hard work and determination to provide this place for the people of Calgary.
We couldn’t be more excited to share it, if you’re planning a visit do get in touch (any excuse to get out there) We might even see the newly resident moose.

image courtesy of Wilco Southwest

Residency at Emily Carr

Looking back to a Fall semester in residency at Emily Carr, it was a privilege to be welcomed into the heart of this passionate place, to explore with the staff and students the culture and community of this school of art and design, and to teach our class on the Art of Place. A thought provoking experience, how do we connect the activities of an art institution to the city, how do we teach about place and people? What do we hope for the future of our art education? A new chapter of work begins and this was a wonderful place to start, thank you to everyone who hosted us throughout Vancouver, we look forward to returning. 

A special thanks to Cameron Cartiere and Cissie Fu for creating the opportunity and Mustaali Raj and Nick Bone for sharing their professional insights with the class.

The art of developing a city

This week, April 25-26th, we’ll be speakers at “The art of developing a city“, a conference organised by Koro and the City of Oslo.

From the conference’s introduction “How can society renew itself by integrating the unruly power that art represents in city and place development? How to avoid public art that could have been "anywhere" and facilitate art that leaps out of forces and ideas with roots instead? Can art be a means of building local communities from the bottom up, and at the same time signal identity and distinctiveness to the outside world?”

The conference explores the interface between art, planning and place and community development and addresses current issues related to how art and artists can play a role in building, neighborhood, area and regional level. The conference will bring together leading international professionals and actors, the Norwegian academic community including cultural planners, planners, developers, curators and artists.

'Here" at Crossroads Gallery

We’re looking forward to the opening of ‘Here’ in Kansas City tonight at the The KCAI Crossroads Gallery: Center for Contemporary Practice.

This exhibition project was developed during a residency for the Center for Contemporary Practice program at the KCAI Crossroads Gallery. It is a combination of intimate memories of diverse places, bringing to the fore the human aspect of place.

The memories were gathered through a specific interview exercise we created to reach these often forgotten moments. Derived from theatre rehearsal methods, psychoanalysis and Police cognitive interview techniques devised to jolt witnesses memories about the details of a past event, the methodology took the participants on a journey through their own lived experiences.

The memories presented at the exhibition are a combination of moments generously shared by KCAI students and also from Calgary Canada and Laramie WY.

April 5 - May 3, 2019

Iconic Site (#5) Toronto

Iconic Site (#5) will be installed until the 30th of November, as part of The Bentway’s Fall Art Exhibition If, But, What If?

Positioned atop a hill at The Bentway’s newly opened Strachan Gate, the work reflects equally on the changing nature of the surrounding communities and the ambitions of The Bentway project itself, which has transformed one of Toronto’s most significant landscapes into a new shared public space for the growing city. It is here that we recognize each signature city project is part of a larger continuum of change, remaking a site “iconic” time and time again.