(Re)defining Our Relationship With Nature by Yang Lim
When viewing Agatha Chacinski’s installation work A Grasp for Love (2022) for the first time, people may initially have been struck most by the bright blue wall of painted purple flowers and the colourful plant life residing in the five pot-like structures that were arranged on the grass. However, upon closer examination, visitors noticed that her work did not contain any live plants and that they were, in fact, artificial creations. Each pot also contained a painted purple heart that was attached to the blue wall via a long piece of sturdy rope.
Dyscorpia
The fascinating thing about digitization of the body is that you will not notice it on your physical self. The discovery of the digital body is a bit like discovering yourself as the host of your own doppelgänger. And after seeing the Dyscorpia exhibit at the Enterprise Square Gallery, you might have the feeling this “Body 2.0” is, at last, trying to shed it’s skin with disregard for it’s biological home.
The Work Behind the Walls
Before coming to work with The Works as a production intern, I can’t say I ever thought about the logistics of making a festival tent into a professional art gallery, but accomplishing this task is one of the most important parts of festival set up and take down. Luckily for my fellow interns and I, there were years of interns before us who figured out the logistics. We just had to learn them. So, here is what you need and how it works:
Festival Survival Guide for Production interns
Working for The Works is a lot of work. Especially in the week and half leading up to festival. You learn a lot about things you weren’t expecting to learn a lot about. Like wood, screws, prerequisites for Instagram swipe links and Verified status, and office acronyms. Problem solving becomes second nature to you, or you at least learn how to hum and haw in ways that inspire others in their problem solving. Production interns are instrumental in preparing for, setting up, and running a free art festival.
Stand and Deliver: Stacey Cann and the Art of Labour
A figure in a red, polka-dotted dress emerges from the wings of The Works Art & Design Festival’s Capital Plaza. She carries a mop bucket and tucks a duster against the small of her back. Her heeled loafers tap delicately against the tiled ground. A pause. The figure falls to her knees. She removes a sponge from her bucket and scrubs the well-traversed tile before her. Without fanfare, Deliver has begun.
“I’m gonna live forever,” says plastic.
Early this year, I started my journey on a sustainability and less waste lifestyle. This started in hopes that my future children will get to enjoy a sustainable and less toxic planet. Sounds like a hopeless dream, isn’t it?
Music To My Eyes: Describing Elisapie’s music and other impossible tasks.
Fundamentally, music is made up of all the same things as speech. Sound waves tumbling through our ears to make noise that some time ago we all agreed, “this means something.” Music is just more waves.
The William Paskins Residence
Interviewing volunteers is one of the best and worst parts of my job. Getting to meet the 150+ amazing individuals who donate their time in order to help put on The Works could possibly be the best part of my entire summer. Each person brings their own unique stories, talents and motivation which places them at a special place within the heart of The Festival.
Decode the visuals behind the festival
The theme of this year’s festival is “Code” and we are happy to partner with Zag Creative to create a fun and exciting marketing campaign to bring this theme to life. Code refers to a system of information embedded in linguistic, visual, and sensory forms. It could be used to simplify or complicate the message. In the interest of decrypting the visual codes of this marketing campaign, I invite you to think of your own interpretations of these graphics.
The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts
One of our many exciting tasks working in the volunteer department is our occasional trips to local farmer’s markets. These outings are intended to both recruit new volunteers and advertise for the festival. Every time we head out to the markets we make sure to bring our trifold, handbills, brochures, applications, candy, pins, stickers, email sign up sheets, and of course; our giant wooden puzzle.
Cassette tapes or piano keys?
I never knew the Works Art and Design Festival existed before applying to its internship program. Then, on my first day of work I missed the house completely. I walked willfully past its location on 106a Ave, and I reached 107 Ave confused. Squinting at Google maps, I executed a swift pivot, hoping the house would appear on my second pass. Thankfully it did, and seeing the steel sculptures out front the red and yellow building confirmed it.This is to say that both the internship and its location surprised me, and my placement as Volunteer Assistant continues to reveal the unexpected.
I became a Situationist and all I got was this t-shirt
Without access to a car, I do a lot of walking. In this process of moving, a physical connection is created between body and place. Walking can be meditative, energizing, challenging and rewarding. As the act of walking translates distance into time, sights seen, sounds heard and energy spent, it imparts an appreciation for what exists between point A and point B. However, with the advent of digitizing maps at the street level, walking is affected more and more by the technology we use.
The Cherry on Top
If you were to ask me four years ago, when I was just graduating high school, what I wanted to do in life, I would have no clue. It’s amazing to look back and see the process of struggling to find myself to now, graduating from post-secondary. In those four years, I found a passion that I care about, a dream to work towards, an organization that I can dedicate myself to, and the will to constantly improve myself.
HEY, do you mind?
Last week, Stephanie Medford visited the Works to Work (W2W) team to give an artist talk on her work Drawn In, to be featured on our main site at Capital Plaza this year. She presented a very honest picture of her experience as an emerging artist up until this point, taking extra care not to gloss over hardships but instead reflect upon what she had learned from them.