SRSI, Day 14: Field Research, Sweater Vests and Postcards
Leesa Bringas’ Postcards to Indian Road project is coming along nicely; some postcards with messages have been returned to her in the mail. Jodi is wrapping up her Sweater Factory with a few completed sweater vests and more to come. BCL Research Fellows Josh and Rosina have been helping the Department of Unusual Certainties with field research, and The Garden Project planters are filling up.
Rosina and Josh went out with Chris and Simon to walk the whole downtown BIA and take notes, travelling all the streets in a systematic, grid-like fashion.
Josh got lost on the way, so the others left a note for him at their arranged meeting spot, which he never received. I wonder who got to read the letter?
Back at DoUC HQ inside 410 Pelissier, their map is getting filled more and more with notes and multicoloured lines.
Thea has been working hard on her installation and it has come a long way so far, finishing the set up by installing a projection.
Thea has spent some long hours painting the windows and scraping off sections of the paint, an interesting process that she seems to really enjoy doing. I’m thinking of what other uses this method could be put to.
Jodi and Leesa have had some fun chatting and working next to eachother this past week. Jodi is all done sewing her sweater vests and is now working on the edging to finish them off, which she is doing by hand.
Here is a non-finished vest that still needs edging. All of the sweaters she made vary in size and stripes, making them truly unique.
Jodi is extending the length of the sweaters slightly with the edging all done by hand. This will most likely take longer to do than time she has in 406, but sweaters will be delivered to lucky recipients by the end of SRSI.
I can’t wait to get my recycled sweater vest made officially on the line in Windsor, Ontario!
Leesa has been working hard making more postcards as well as logging and tracking the ones that have been sent in the mail.
Her workstations have been filling up with returned postcards. The narratives and personal memories on the undelivered postcards are viewable in two locations on the 400 block of Pelissier.
Leesa has told us that the post worker who has been returning the postcards to her really appreciates and encourages the project.
Lea Bucknell’s Garden Project is all installed and ready to be filled with local plants. Lea has been engaging in many interesting conversations with Windsor residents and has started a hand-drawn map collection on the left hand wall of her space.
I can’t wait to see this project develop further. The Garden Party at 7pm on June 30th will prove to be a fun time!
Around 4pm, the window spaces get really hot as they are facing west and the sun shines right in.
Rosina has been a huge help around SRSI, she is cute as a button!
Thea was commissioned to make a window sign for The Department of Unusual Certainties using her paint and tape technique which she clearly enjoys doing. This little number didn’t take too much time away from her own work on Thursday.
Although she was getting pretty sweaty working right in the window space.
When 5pm rolls around, we are all biking off only to return tomorrow for another day of producing more thought-provoking, intuitive work.
This project is generously supported by the City of Windsor: Cultural Affairs Office, Arts Council Windsor & Region, Windsor Pride, and the Ontario Arts Council.
Related Posts: SRSI, Day 16 & 17 : Collaboration SRSI, Day 15: Evening Projections & Conversations SRSI, Day 11: Norman’s Crush and Getting Organized
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I had a great conversation with Jodi and Leesa broadly about art, but perhaps more specifically about how this art / these art projects will actually be encountered — that is, most-likely online, maybe through a publication, but almost certainly through these photographs (or others like them).
That isn’t to say that this way of experiencing the work is exclusive to SRSI (though it’s been something that I think we’ve been aware of since day 1), but rather that if the work is experienced in this way, the stuff that I think needs to be incubated are these types of research and process-based activities.
I’m infinitely more interested in seeing these projects unfold and temporarily transform these spaces (perhaps more socially than even physically) than I would be seeing similar things happen in a gallery space. And I don’t think that bias is lost on anyone, but I am curious about how best to articulate this project as a whole when it’s all finished (an exhibition would be one kind of articulation, though arguably a very unsuitable one for this project in particular). So, I think what I’m really wondering is, if we can get over the idea that these works or even any of this documentation needs to be exhibited in a gallery (to be officially deemed artwork), how can that free up the possibility of what these projects can do and in turn, what art / artistic practice can do?
[...] we ventured over to check out Broken City Lab‘s storefront [...]