other sights

Köbberling & Kaltwasser: The Games Are Open

North­west cor­ner of the Olympic Village

South­east False Creek, Van­cou­ver, Canada

Sep­tem­ber 2010 – of unde­ter­mined duration

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.

Fre­quently Asked Questions

What is this?

In the Sum­mer of 2010, Köb­ber­ling & Kalt­wasser worked with a project crew, team of Emily Carr Uni­ver­sity of Art and Design stu­dents and other vol­un­teers to cre­ate a sculp­ture from over 1,000 wheat board pan­els recy­cled from the neigh­bour­ing 2010 Olympic and Par­a­lympic Win­ter Games Ath­letes’ Vil­lage. The sculp­ture took the form of a larger-than-life bull­dozer — with shovel down, it faced the expanse of  land await­ing future devel­op­ment on this  South East False Creek site.

What is it made out of?

The sculp­ture is made from wheat board – an engi­neered com­pos­ite panel of 94% finely ground wheat chaff and 6% MDI, methyl diphenyl dis­o­cyanate which is a formalde­hyde free bind­ing agent. The mate­r­ial is com­postable. Dur­ing con­struc­tion, soil was added to some of the sculpture’s cav­i­ties to aid in the decom­pos­ing process.

How long did it take to make?

9 weeks. Con­struc­tion was com­pleted on Sep­tem­ber 10, 2010.

How long will it occupy the site?

The art­work has an unde­ter­mined end date. Exposed to weather, soil, and the pass­ing of time, the wheat board con­struc­tion is giv­ing way to a process of grad­ual decom­po­si­tion, its form pro­vid­ing fod­der for new growth. Tran­si­tion­ing slowly from sculp­ture to plant nurs­ery, the project’s bounty will be offered for trans­plant­ing through­out the future devel­op­ment. The City will be mak­ing deci­sions about the future of the old City works yard lands in com­ing years. In the mean­time, the gen­er­a­tive efforts of The Games are Open will be sub­ject to eco­nomic, bio­log­i­cal and social forces.

What will hap­pen to it as it starts to break down?

Over time, the wind, rain and sun in com­bi­na­tion with local plants, ani­mals and fungi, will weaken the boards to the point of col­lapse. As they come apart and fall, more soil is being added to encour­age fur­ther growth and trans­for­ma­tion. Native plants are grad­u­ally self-seeding and through the efforts of the neigh­bour­ing “Grow” pub­lic art project (sum­mer 2011), cul­ti­vated plants were also introduced.

About the Artists

Köb­ber­ling & Kalt­wasser cre­ate sit­u­a­tions that encour­age the par­tic­i­pa­tion of diverse publics. Their work uses infor­mal meth­ods to make vis­i­ble the trans­for­ma­tion of begged, bor­rowed, donated, sal­vaged, and found mate­ri­als into pub­licly used objects and spaces. They have exhib­ited exten­sively in Ger­many and inter­na­tion­ally and were included in the 2009 Archi­tec­ture Bien­nial in Sao Paulo and in the 2010 Poz­nan Bien­nial. Recent solo exhi­bi­tions include Power Plant / Chi­nati Foun­da­tion, Marfa; Galerie Anselm Dreher, Berlin; Ujad­owski Cas­tle CSW, Warsaw/PL; Architek­tur­ga­lerie am Weißen­hof, Stuttgart; Art­fo­rum Berlin; Lothringer 13/Laden, Munich; Simul­tan­halle, Cologne; and Shed­halle, Zurich. Recent works for pub­lic space include The Jel­ly­fish The­atre in London’s city cen­tre, Cars into Bicy­cles at Berg­amot Sta­tion in Santa Mon­ica, Cal­i­for­nia and Trash Cir­cu­lated, at the Werkleitz Festival.

Cura­tor and Project Management

Bar­bara Cole

Project Intern

Karen Gar­rett de Luna

Project Lead­ers, Work Crew

Emma Artis, Miguel Da Con­ce­icao, Gabe Daly, Jin­han Ko, Chelsea Trous­dell, Desmond Wong

Vol­un­teers, Work Crew

Neudis Abreu, John Armitage, Emma Artis, Matthew Bal­lan­tyne, Stew­art Burgess, Neil Chung, Gabe Daly, Louis Doues­nard, Sherry Gilbank, James Kemp, Chris­t­ian Kliegel, Chad Man­ley, Dave Mason, Emilio Rojas, Michael Schwartz, Mike Tay­lor, Sandy Wang, Steve Williams, Antoni Woj­tyra, Desmond Wong, Michael Zife

Emily Carr Uni­ver­sity of Art + Design Co-op Stu­dents, Work Crew

Lance Car­di­nal, Tony Char­lie, Tom Hsu, Sanghyun Samuel Kim, Bahador Saray Sorour, Sarah Stor­te­boom, Chelsea Trous­dell, Shuai Zhao

Head­quar­ters Artist

Holly Schmidt

Com­mis­sioned Text (website)

Holly Ward — Read Essay

Photo Doc­u­men­ta­tion (ongoing)

Bar­bara Cole, Tom Hsu

Fun­ders

British Colum­bia Arts Coun­cil
City of Van­cou­ver
The Canada Coun­cil for the Arts
Van­cou­ver Foundation

Part­ners

Lan­gara Col­lege Cen­tre for Art in Pub­lic Spaces

Part­ners in Education

Emily Carr Uni­ver­sity of Art + Design

Donors and Other Kind Souls

City of Van­cou­ver
Eric Deis Stu­dio
Exchange-A-Blade
Home Depot
Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Group
PWL Part­ner­ship Land­scape Archi­tects Inc
Roberts & Stahl Bar­ris­ters and Solic­i­tors
Sec­ond City Print­ing
The Model Shop
Bob
Ger­maine and Ian
James and Daniel
Katharine
Lan­don
Sheila Mackenzie

Above and Beyond

City and Park Board Staff: Bob Chang, Char­lie Cuzzetto, Tilo Driesen, Wally Konowalchuk , Man­abu Koshimura, Allen Lee, Scott Hein, Bryan New­son, Alix Sales, Joe Snadel, jil p. weav­ing
Lan­gara Col­lege: Cen­tre for Art in Pub­lic Spaces Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, Katie Eliot, Eric Stew­art and Sylvia Tan

Related Links

False Creek [T & T]