A Look at Process: building for CAFKA & designing for HFBC

We’re playing catchup. Between vacations, short hiatuses, and our summer schedules, we’ve been busy. However, getting back together, working together again on a more regular basis, and starting up on these projects again has been so great and incredibly rewarding. Our to-do list above is a small start to all of the projects we have on the go.

We’re working to finish up our How to Forget the Border Completely research publication (if you want to participate, check out our micro-grant), we’re planning the logistics of Homework (consider attending!), and we’re in the early stages of the final build for CAFKA.

Plans from my sketchbook for pages of the HFBC publication. Portals.

Our imaginary consultancy.

Rosina’s geocaching project proposal.

More ideas on how to display Rosina’s work. These rough sketches are being translated into something useful in InDesign. Sara’s working on the design, we’re working to finish up content. We’ll be making the book public by the fall, it’s going to be an epic guide on how we might propose that we all forget about the border.

Out in Kingsville, at a farm, Hiba, Sara, Josh, and I work on our project for CAFKA.

After a lot of planning, we’ve come up with a process to create this large-scale installation. Think lots of glue.

And lots of clamps.

And lots of plywood.

We’ve decided to make the letters flat, rather than 3D as we had been previously working towards. There’s a huge number of logistical concerns and aesthetic cues that helped us decide and we’re happy we did.

Basically, we’re gluing 5/8″ tongue and groove plywood together with another lay of 1/2″ plywood on top to create 8′x8′ squares.

This will give us the surface area we need to create letters that are between 7′ and 8′ high.

The wood piled on top will eventually be turned into bases and supports, but for now, is just helping us keep some weight on the glue.

There’s about 5 letters there.

Cheap Jobmate clamps from Canadian Tire were doing a good job alongside these ones that Hiba brought from home.

Taking a break at the end of the day, next steps are all about getting the retroreflective material onto these 8′x8′ sheets.

Here’s the install site that we’ll be working with up in Kitchener, it’s going to be incredible!!!

And now, I’m writing from Calgary, where we’re at the start of a residency project with TRUCK. More soon.