'PART OF 'ESPACE COMMMUN', Montreal 2015

A series of works - created with MTL artist and knitter Marilene Gaudet as part of ESPACE COMMUN, looking at the experiences of people in downtown Montreal, and critically questioning the role of arts in a changing urban environment. The works were been based on a number of interviews around Quartier des Spectacles, as well as visual research into the area. The works include animation, knitted textile installations, and an interactive sound installation in a Bell telephone box.

The works record and imaginatively represent the ideas, experiences and iconography of the people living, working and passing through the area. They build a picture of overlapping and often conflicting perspectives on the area, revealing characters, stories, social dynamics and tensions, and ask the question “what is the place of the arts?”.

CROSSED LINES is a sound installation housed in a Bell telephone booth that invites passers by to listen to interviews with a variety of people in downtown Montreal. By referring to the directory, users can dial and listen to the thoughts of tourists, strippers, small business oweners, artists, homeless, protesters, police and more, all whilst seeing the sound visualised in realtime as a knitted waveform.

CECI N'EST PAS UN SPECTACLE is a knitted animation hinting at the absurdity of ‘representation’ in arts and the critical limits of public realm projection. The film was originally projected onto the facade of the Centre de Design, Montreal.

FAIR ISLE MARKERS are a series of knitted textile banners, displaying quotations taken from the interviews, installed around the city. The texts are deliberatley unattribited, forcing us to guess at the author, and interpret the meaning ourselves. An additional series of pictoral patterned textiles were installed at shops, re-mixing the visual iconaography of each site as traditional fair-isle motifs.