other sights

When The Hosts Come Home

T&T (Tony Romano and Tyler Brett), FALSE CREEK, Feb­ru­ary 5 – March 3, 2010
Köb­ber­ling and Kalt­wasser, THE GAMES ARE OPEN, Sum­mer 2010
Cedric Bom­ford with Nathan and Jim Bom­ford, BOMFORD (FLOATING) PROJECT (work­ing title), Upcom­ing, Fall 2012

After the Van­cou­ver 2010 Olympic and Par­a­lympic ath­letes gath­ered their medals and returned to their respec­tive coun­tries, Vancouver’s Olympic Vil­lage reverted from dor­mi­tory to “home” as con­do­minium own­ers began to grad­u­ally move into the new “Vil­lage on False Creek”. This period of tran­si­tion prompted ret­ro­spec­tion, caus­ing fed-up (or elated) hosts to reflect on how their under­stand­ing and expe­ri­ence of place was altered by the impact of the mass spec­ta­cle of the Win­ter Olympics.

South­east False Creek was planned as a “model sus­tain­able devel­op­ment” – one that pro­moted green build­ing prac­tices, envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity, and alter­na­tive trans­porta­tion choices. Con­sis­tent with this imper­a­tive, When the Hosts Come Home invited three artist teams whose prac­tices incor­po­rate the use of recy­cled and refur­bished mate­ri­als, to cre­ate tem­po­rary, site spe­cific sculp­tural works that address the mean­ing of “legacy”. Whether cre­at­ing tem­po­rary ‘habi­tat’, struc­tures that ref­er­ence hier­ar­chies, or pavil­ions for wish­ful uses, all three teams respond to social moments and pro­mote pub­lic agency. Their work uses infor­mal meth­ods to make vis­i­ble the trans­for­ma­tion of begged, bor­rowed, donated, sal­vaged, and found mate­ri­als into pub­licly used objects and spaces.

Cen­tral to this project is mak­ing pub­lic the acts of for­ag­ing, com­pil­ing, cre­at­ing, exper­i­ment­ing, build­ing, and exhibit­ing. Find­ing new pur­poses for sur­plus mate­r­ial has at its heart, an impulse to be thrifty, a trait that car­ries extra sig­nif­i­cance when enacted on the site of the Olympic Vil­lage. T&T, Köb­ber­ling and Kalt­wasser, and the Bom­fords, cre­ate sit­u­a­tions that encour­age the par­tic­i­pa­tion of diverse publics. Their work is touched by many, indeed, is depen­dent upon a spirit of coop­er­a­tion and enabling.

In the pre­sen­ta­tion of these works, Other Sights encour­ages the coop­er­a­tion of reg­u­la­tory bod­ies, insti­tu­tions, cor­po­ra­tions, busi­nesses, and the gen­eros­ity of indi­vid­u­als, to share excess, lib­er­ate the dis­carded, and con­tribute to the build­ing of new forms and meaning.

Curated by Bar­bara Cole

Group Search was made pos­si­ble through the invalu­able con­tri­bu­tions of The Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, the British Colum­bia Arts Coun­cil, The City of Van­cou­ver, The Van­cou­ver Foun­da­tion, Lan­gara Col­lege Cen­tre for Art in Pub­lic Spaces, Van­cou­ver Parks and Recre­ation, Emily Carr Uni­ver­sity of Art + Design, and Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Group.