Public Art Action Forum: A Review

Thanks again to Kristy Trinier for facilitating our afternoon discussion and for her wonderful lecture in the evening. Thank you also to the participants of both sessions held at MacDonald Island park. It was wonderful to hear the discussions around the room and to see the excitement of the participants as Kristy shared her experience, knowledge and personal anecdotes. We are currently working to compile the information that was gathered during the afternoon session for review.

For those of you who were not able to attend yesterday's initiative here is a brief recap of the day's events.

From 2 - 4:30 p.m the Public Art Director of the Edmonton Arts Council, Kristy Trinier facilitated a information session and group discussion centred on Public Art and the various policies and practices of contemporary programs. She started the afternoon with a PowerPoint presentation which gave a descriptive history of Public Art as well as contemporary practices, controversies and related policies. With the conclusion of the presentation the participants formed small groups and discussed questions posed by Kristy. The round table discussions were based on a theme, the whole room was given a theme and then each table a specific questions. The themes and questions progressed each time, building upon the responses of the previous. For example:

First Theme: What does our city look like visually right now?
Table 1. What colours/lines/patterns are most visible?

Second Theme: Do you feel and see the culture of your community visually?
Table 1. Does the city visually reflect the people and vitality of our community? If so, how was this connection established? If no, how do you create the connection?

In the room there were seven easels, each easel held a pair of images. Each pair represented two Public Art projects of a similar nature. For example there is an image below of the 'Architecture Pair'. On the left is an image from the Alberta Art Gallery in Edmonton, featuring the creative design of the Randall Stout Architects, Inc. On the right is an image of international artist, Antonia Hirsch's, 'Double Blind' work which is located in Vancouver Community College’s Broadway Campus building. These two images show different ways to engage the interior of a building - for the left project the concept of art was worked into the fabric of the structure, on the rights the work was applied post production in a way that utilizes the space and context of the location. The participants of both the afternoon and evening sessions were given seven tickets each, and were asked to pick one image from each pair that they preferred - dropping their ticket into the envelope below the winning image. Stay tuned - we will tabulate the scores and post the rest of the images on the blog next week.

The 7 - 8:30 p.m session was a second presentation from Kristy, elaborating on the content discussed in the afternoon session. The Public Art Action Forum was filled with discussion, debate, questions, and knowledge building.

Thanks again to the supporters of this initiative: The Wood Buffalo Artists Forum, The Fort McMurray Arts and Craft Guild, Keyano College, Wood Buffalo Big Spirit and Events Wood Buffalo.

Cheers,

Connor


Here is an article from last Friday's Today publication. Click on the image to enlarge for easy reading.