Olympic Village Discards Recast As Public Art
It’s really the last place you’d look for art: Behind barbed wire, on the back corner of an abandoned industrial lot, tucked in behind a big pile of dirt and gravel sprouting scrappy clumps of grass. In the movies, this would be the place to dump a body. In Vancouver, this generic strip of halfpaved wasteland next to the Olympic Village has become a piece of interactive public art.
Köbberling & Kaltwasser: The Games Are Open
As South East False Creek began its new life as Canada’s largest ‘green’ housing development, the Berlin-based artist team of Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser used materials recycled from the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Athletes’ Village to create a situation of exchange and cooperation. On lands slated for future development, the artists created a 6 x 7 x 14m artwork that invited the participation of new neighbours to liberate the discarded, share excess, and contribute to the building of new forms and meanings.