Critical Theory Book Club

We are co-hosting Andrea Williamson’s critical theory book club tonight, this will be the second of three. Looking at site-specific Art, our second pick is an excerpt titled 'Sitings of Public Art: Integration Versus Intervention' found in 'One Place after Another' written by Miwon Kwon.
If you’re interested you can sign up here, or if your not in Calgary and would like to read along with us, we’ll keep the blog up to date with the next book selected.

Six Acres Update

On our way to Ruhr we stopped in to see the progress of our project Six Acres. Things are progressing along quickly! Looking forward to sharing the completed images, but for now here is a sneak peak.

Cacher pour mieux montrer

Last week we installed Cacher pour mieux montrer in Saskatoon. The temporary installation covers public art in the city for 3 weeks, bringing it back to attention and starting conversation about public art. The weather was very clement, considering the time of year, and the public's reaction was really positive and supportive. Here are a few pictures of the work in progress:

A Day at the Square

The Day at the Square event took place last week and went very well.
From the great photographic portraits of Eileen Perrier all the way to the Parkour demonstrations and the film screeenings the day was really busy and the rain almost absent. The day was really useful in informing the development of the work for this place.

Here are a few snaps of the day:

A day at the square

We're finishing the last details on an event we're setting up in Finsbury Park (London) on Saturday.
A day in the Square will take place on a purpose built platform at the heart of the main public space in Six Acres. The platform will be in place for just 12 hours, hosting a changing program of free events: talks, screenings, demonstrations, food... The event will directly inform the permanent work we'll be designing for this place, activating the space and engaging people, testing possibilities.

A day in the Square serves as an introduction, a discussion, an experiment, a learning exercise to understand uses and users, and sets the tone of the permanent works to come. This day-long event will celebrate the future of the space and become a pre launch for this public space.

This event is part of The Secret garden Project by Up Projects commissioned by One Housing Group in partnership with Islington Council

Hydrant fountains in action

The fountains were installed on the river front in Calgary for Canada Day last week-end, and people were trying them even before we finished installing them! And this week end the Stampede and Water Services have been working together to get them installed this morning on Stampede grounds, more pictures soon.

In the mean time here are a few pictures from last week end:

Fire Hydrant Fountains

The fabrication shop have been working hard and have been fantastic at making this project happen, they finished the three different fountains and they're almost ready to be put in place for Canada Day this week end. Here's a sneak preview of the two other designs and the first one - "strangers" or the "dating fountain" - being used this morning for a TV interview.

More pictures of them in use next week.

Hydrant drinking fountain

First trial of the "strangers" fountain today in front of the water center. The fabrication team did a grand job and it's looking very nice.
The fabrication for the 2 other fountains is now starting, looking forward to see the developments.

watershed+ developments

Finally some updates.
The organisation and the setting up of the first Watershed+ initiatives is keeping us busy. From the initial 10 "deliverables", we now have about 25, which is very exciting but takes time.


The bowls for the fountains have arrived today.

The first of these initiatives to become live is the temporary fountains. We've been working with the UEP Public Art Program and the City's metal fabrication team to develop some fountains that can be fixed onto fire hydrants for festivals and other events. Temporary fountains attached to fire hydrant are a fairly common practice in North America, but often limited to a very functional set up and/or as a bilboard for messaging. For Watershed+ the fountains design became an opportunity to play with their social role as gathering spaces and expressing the invisble systems underground. We've designed 3 different fountains which should be ready for Canada day, 1st July. More soon and we'll post pictures as they get built.

We're also having a blog/documentation/source site being developed for W+ which should be ready before the end of the month. In the mean time you can have a look at our daily picture on watershedplus.tumblr.

Hidden spaces No.8

Glasgow, Stovenhaven

Hidden spaces No.7

North Shields, Fish Quay

Hidden spaces No.6

Glasgow

Hidden spaces No.5

Aberdeen & Glasgow

Hidden spaces No.2

Glasgow

Hidden spaces No.1

Glasgow