Rewind: Shore/lines
MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie
The Environmental Art movement got a great boost this past summer in Canada. As part of the celebrations commemorating the founding of the City of Barrie on the shores of Lake Simcoe 150 years ago, the MacLaren Art Centre turned the city's parks and shorelines into an outdoor art museum. From early spring to late fall, 15 artists from Canada, the United States and Europe came to Barrie to create site-specific installations with an environmental message.
Many art movements have come and gone since the 1960s, when the first Environmental Art projects appeared, offering a new approach to art and to nature in a politically charged society in the throes of social upheaval. Over the years the movement had many faces, ranging from monumental land works and urban forests to water purification and land-detoxification projects.
The work by French environmental artists Gilles Bruni and Marc Babarit, which was in keeping with the tradition of a strong ecological message, was the most successful installation in the "Shore/lines" project. The duo chose the decaying bed of Kidd Creek and focused on the duality of natural forces affecting the site: the search for purity in nature, embodied by the freshwater springs in the area, and the local environmental problems, represented by the pollution originating in local landfills. They built two structures centred on an imposing dead tree: one in the shape of a boat, the other an inverted version of the boat shape as a shelter on stilts. The scene evoked the feel of an ancient encampment, until one noticed the bundles of newspapers (unsold, poorly printed copies) and plastic water drums (found in a landfill) piled into the primitive shelter and boat, respectively. This contemporary intrusion brought into focus in simple and powerful terms the issues of waste, pollution and exploitation of natural resources.
There were other memorable works in the "Shore/lines" project, some that will remain in place, and others that will be slowly reclaimed by the elements. In a work that was symbolic of the reconciliation between past and present, Lance Belanger and Kitty Mykka built a ceremonial pathway, paying homage to the memory of the Aboriginal people who have lived in the region ever since the great ice shields melted. Alfio Bonanno constructed five large structures from twigs and branches, reminiscent in form of the milkweed pod, on which the monarch butterfly depends for the survival of its chrysalis.
In other notable components of the "Shore/lines" event, Bill Vazan created a monumental turf-cutting piece; Patrick Dougherty built a sapling sculpture evoking fantastical architecture from the world of fairy tales; and William Gill erected a lighthouse warning not of stormy waters but of the dangers of urban encroachment.
"Shore/lines" is part of the MacLaren's ArtCity project, and will continue through 2005. At a time when the Kyoto Protocol still remains to be ratified by some of the world's worst-polluting industrial powers, Environmental Art projects such as this continue to be relevant.
Winter 2003
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