Work By Groundswell Archive

Published July 5, 2011 Features, Work by Groundswell
James David Morgan

Sean Martindale Explores the Politics of Place with Love The Future / Free Ai Weiwei at Whippersnapper Gallery

Groundswell was recently invited to contribute an exhibition essay for Sean Martindale’s Love the Future / Free Ai Weiwei, a sculptural installation at Whippersnapper Gallery through the end of this month. On the eve of the opening reception, the world-renown artist Ai Weiwei was conditionally released from detention in Beijing, making the event much more joyous than we could have anticipated. His condition and whereabouts were still unknown, as were the conditions of his release. What’s more, the world had yet to hear any news of his compatriots, but the promise that China had freed Ai was cause for celebration.

Love the Future / Free Ai Weiwei, is a cardboard sculpture of the Chinese artist, located on the border of Toronto’s central Chinatown, Alexandra Park (one of the cities oldest housing projects), and the eclectic Kensington Market. With all of these geographical considerations in mind, Martindale hopes to explore what it means for a North American artist to express solidarity with a Chinese dissident and fellow artist. The sunflower seeds at the base of the sculpture are a reference to Ai’s recent work at London’s Tate Gallery, the popularity of which has made the seeds an icon of his struggle. Throughout, the gallery has been transformed into an information center, sharing Ai Weiwei’s story and updates about his condition. Martindale’s creative response pushed artists and activists alike to consider further options for pressing for Ai’s release, and still functions as a criticism of the crackdown on dissenting artists and activists within China and elsewhere.

Courtesy Whippersnapper Gallery

The cardboard used in the sculpture was sourced from nearby streets, following Martindale’s commitment to using local and reclaimed materials, and during this show, he will return to those streets to create site-specific works using the materials he finds there.

Below is the full exhibition essay, which can also be downloaded here. Please note that the text was written prior to Ai’s release, and has not been updated.

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Political Art from the Bottom Up is our monthly e-newsletter which features original coverage of artists, events, works, exhibitions, and more by Groundswell writers and an international network of artists, curators, and critics.

Issue 00 contributors respond to the inherent and overlapping crises that form the surface of our smoothed-out world, from the climate to vacant land and home foreclosures.

In places, we imagine the post-capitalist future of the cultures and (infra)structures we're building, while elsewhere we recount the stories we know we'll tell.

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Groundswell is a loose affiliation of critical cultural producers who work at the intersection of art and activism. Read more about Groundswell.

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Published June 24, 2011 Work by Groundswell
James David Morgan

Toronto FEAST 02 Winners Announced

We are pleased to announce that Shannon Linde & Edward Birnbaum are the winners of the FEAST Project Grant, and Zack Pearl & April Wong are the winners of the XPACE FEAST Student Grant.

Shannon Linde & Edward Birnbaum proposed the Toronto Sauna Project, which they describe as:

a public installation that takes over an otherwise closed-for-the-season Toronto Parks building in MacGregor Park, transforming the space into a community-accessible sauna for two consecutive weekends in Februrary 2012. Based on the theme of winter solace, the project stems from a reaction to current sauna and bathhouse practices that exist in North America under segregated circumstances, as well a desire to revive unused public space during the long winter months. The goal is to create an authentic sauna experience through the use of electric heat sources and cedar, supplemented by media elements such as sound and light. The Toronto Sauna Project will offer a warm retreat from Toronto’s longest, and often most isolated, season, inviting the community into a comfortable space that is all at once relaxing, reflective, and fun.

Inspired by such high-profile projects as Berlin’s Badeschiff, and Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project, the Toronto Sauna Project aspires to be a cost free facility for use by the general public.

Zack Pearl & April Wong’s winning student grant proposal was for an installation at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel that reflects on the architectural dissonance resulting from the rapid gentrification of the Queen Street West area where the hotel is found. Through consultation with the public (defined as anyone with a past or present relationship to the area), Wong will develop graphic, pattern-heavy cityscapes and tectonic forms from such materials as mylar, parchment, and plexiglass, to illustrate the neighborhood’s trajectory.

Toronto FEAST would like to thank all the presenters and participating diners for making FEAST 02 a great event. A special thank you is in order to my co-conspirators, Amber Landgraff and Deborah Wang, for bringing me on to help organize this event.

Published June 1, 2011 Features, Topos 00 - Reclamation, Work by Groundswell
James David Morgan

ARTUNG! Montreal Ad Takeover Reclaims Public Space for Art

In Montreal, fifty public space activists known as ARTUNG! have successfully taken back hundreds of spaces owned by the advertising companies Pattison, CBS Outdoor and Astral Media, filling the space instead with community artwork.

The Beehive Collective’s No Fences, No Borders for ARTUNG

Plateau Mont-Royal, the borough where the action was staged, recently voted to ban 45 billboards from the area. The advertising giants responded with a legal threat to reverse this democratically made decision, favored by 78% of residents. Their aggression inspired ARTUNG! to take direct action. Vanessa Moraless, an ARTUNG! campaigner offers this explanation in a press release:

Today, we transformed Montreal’s outdoor ads into public works of art to send a message to advertising giants: to stop threatening residents of the Plateau with an unnecessary legal battle and immediately remove their visual pollution from the whole of Montreal’s cityscape.

Rayures Horizontales Duct Tape by François Lalumière for ARTUNG!

Differing from the recent ad takeover in Madrid, ARTUNG! organizers invited artists to contribute handmade works, stencils, or stickers, or to leave the visual art materials at home and create a flashmob or performance art piece in the space. The goal was a “collage. . . a wonderful surprise to the community,” augmented by the participation of bloggers, community groups, and more.

ARTUNG! contributor Jordan Seiler’s Pink Earrings

In total, the action successfully removed 250 ads, and opened 110 boxes to install art. Many of the contributing artists will be familiar to Groundswell readers from past coverage of NYSAT and MaSAT, as well as the more recent planter installations in Toronto.

Now that the action is complete, ARTUNG! has opened the doors for further collaboration, making their website a platform for tracking guerrilla public space reclamation in Montreal, past and present. Residents and transients are encouraged to input their work, or their favorite piece they spotted at street-level.

Disclosure: Groundswell supported ARTUNG! by providing coverage and collaborators. All of the above photos are taken from cecinestpasunepub.net, where a full gallery of images from the action is hosted.

Published May 23, 2011 Topos 00 - Reclamation, Work by Groundswell
James David Morgan

Toronto’s Guerrilla Gardeners Think Outside the Planter Boxes

Planter box intervention designed by Sean Martindale, photo courtesy of the artist

FEAST Toronto grant recipient Sean Martindale and a team of about a dozen urban interventionists took part in a weekend-long installation of Outside the Planter Boxes, intended to highlight some of the neglected city tree planter boxes that line our busy streets by staging a number of creative interventions.

Planter box intervention designed by Martin Reis, hot on the heels on Jan Voorman, photo courtesy of the artist

Planter box installation designed by Karen Abel, photo by the Torontoist

Planter box intervention designed by Hyein Lee, photo courtesy of the artist

Planter box intervention designed by James Calderone, photo courtesy of the artist

Torontoist and BlogTO have more; we will have more photos and a full documentation site up later this week.

Disclosure: Groundswell lent this project a hand, and I’m helping to coordinate Toronto FEAST 02.

Published May 7, 2011 Work by Groundswell
James David Morgan

Come FEAST with Us! Toronto’s FEAST 02 Call for Proposals

UPDATE: Tickets to FEAST 02 are now available!
toronto feast Come FEAST with Us! Torontos FEAST 02 Call for Proposals

Toronto’s second FEAST will be held at XPACE Cultural Centre on Wednesday, June 15, 2011. Artists who are interested in presenting their work for a chance to be awarded the night’s grant money – which includes both the money raised from the dinner and a dedicated $300 student award – should submit their proposals now.

FEAST 02 proposals should include:
A Project Summary (1), and the answers to the following questions:
(2) How will you use funding to realize your project?
(3) Why is this project critical to the FEAST community (e.g. why would the FEAST community be interested in supporting your project)?
(4) The names and contact information for all of your presenters

Read the full call for proposals on the FEAST website.

Disclosure: I’ve joined up with Toronto FEAST co-founders Amber Landgraff and Deborah Wang to help organize FEAST 02.

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