Inspiration

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: BANANA SLUG

MERGE features twenty colours representing a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and Seymour River area, including the beloved Banana Slug.  

One of our favourite images from the MERGE installation was taken by Jason Hardy from @solidrockfencing.  Jason took this incredible photograph of an actual local Banana Slug sliding out from between panels in the Banana Slug segment just after they had been stored in a grassy area since the Spring.

Reconfiguring this section of Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) is a large and complex undertaking and not without a one or two unforeseen challenges… such as the huge lamp post that was installed immediately in front of the ‘Banana Slug’ section! 

Thanks to the friendly team at @solidrockfencing and @KCIKraftConsultingInc we were able to carefully reposition the Banana Slug panel and complete the 4m tall and 356m spectrum with the Banana Slug unobstructed 🙂

@solidrockfencing

@KCIKraftConsultingInc

@NVanDistrict

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MERGE (2021) Rebecca Bayer, 356m x 4m, Powder-coated Aluminum Acoustic Panels,⁠
Trans-Canada Highway @ Keith Road⁠, Lynnmour, District of North Vancouver, territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations

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Tags | Aesthetic, Art, Colour, Design, Infrastructure, Interconnections, Nature, North Vancouver, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Vancouver

Coming Together To Give Back To The Community

On the anniversary of our COVID-19 life, we want to share some feel good news from 2020. With proceeds from the sale of “Come Together” (2020), we were able to donate back to the St. James Town Community Corner, near TTC Sherbourne subway station. “Come Together” is a bespoke, glazed ceramic tile mosaic (0.6m x 2.0m) commissioned by Louis Vuitton.

“Come Together” (2020) glazed ceramic tile mosaic (0.6m x 2.0m) Louis Vuitton. Yorkdale, Toronto.

The St. James Town Community Corner was one of the hosts to the original community pattern-making workshops that Spacemakeplace held in 2018 to gather pattern inspiration for the TTC mosaic. The donation from Spacemakeplace will be used in a program that offers employment to local refugee women to prepare meals for the elderly and vulnerable in the community over the COVID-19 crisis.

Store designers for Louis Vuitton contacted Rebecca last spring interested in acquiring a new work to be included in the Louis Vuitton international art collection. “Come Together” (2020) is displayed alongside new artworks by Toronto-based street artist BirdO, and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, at the new Louis Vuitton Canadian flagship store located in Yorkdale Mall,  Toronto.

“The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of It’s Parts”. TTC Sherbourne Subway Station. Toronto, ON

 

Tags | Aesthetic, Art, Colour, Community, Design, Infrastructure, Interconnections, Mosaic, Networks, Ontario, Pattern, Public Space, Public Transport, Sherbourne, Tessellation, Tile, Toronto, Transit, TTC, Urban

Joyful Math and “The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts”

2020 was full surprises.  One nice surprise was to have “The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts” community mosaic featured in a new math textbook for kids published by Stenhouse Publishers .

In Deanna Pecaski McLennan’s kindergarten classroom, math isn’t limited to a specific block of time. It’s built into the environment and inseparable from everything her young students do. All of the math is infused with a sense of exploration, wonder, and joy.

Our public art project is mentioned in the chapter titled “Art Beyond the Classroom Walls”. “The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts” is a series of 39 mosaics located throughout TTC Sherbourne station welcome commuters in the universal languages of colour and geometry.

Thank you to Deanna Pecaski McLennan and Stenhouse Publishing for reaching out to us.

Tags | Art, Community, Geometry, Math, Mosaic, Pattern, Public Space, Public Transport, Sherbourne, Tessellation, Tile, Toronto, Transit, TTC

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Design Process

Following the public pattern making workshop series held across the City of Maple Ridge during February 2019 we returned to our studio to work on the next stage of the Maple Ridge Community Mosaic, the Design Phase.

We had collected and documented approximately 540 unique triangular patterns during the public workshops and now it was time to study them all and consider ways in which we could blend as many of them together to form a cohesive whole.

During the workshops we had encouraged participants to use groups of themed colours that represented the seasons and this helped us arrange different patterns together.  Over a six week period we tested hundreds of combinations of patterns and colour combinations before we settled on the final design.

Once the final design was approved by the City of Maple Ridge we were ready to begin the next phase: fabrication…almost!

All of the tiles for the Maple Ridge Community Mosaic need to be custom made for this project.  To make sure we ordered the correct numbers of coloured tiles to cover the 410 SF wall spaces inside the Maple Ridge Leisure Centre each of the 14,000+ tiles in the mosaic had to be counted first!

Tags | Art, Colour, Community, Design, Interconnections, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Networks, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Community Engagement

The Maple Ridge Leisure Centre is an important hub for the neighbourhoods it serves.  Our new artwork intends to reaffirm the Maple Ridge Leisure Centre as a shared place where the wider community interacts daily.

The Maple Ridge Community Mosaic is created from content gathered from artist-­run community workshops.  Our role, as lead artists, is one of interpreters of the research and to create a new patterned design that represents the unique fabric of the local Maple Ridge community.  Traditional and contemporary patterns and motifs created by local people have been woven together and combined to form the final artwork.

In February 2019 we held community pattern making workshops with local groups at:

● Saturday 9 February
○ Maple Ridge Public Library (Repair Cafe)

● Wednesday 13 February
○ Maple Ridge Leisure Centre (Parents and Child Playtime)

○ Harry Hooge Elementary School

● Thursday 14 February
○ Chartwell Willow Manor

○ Maple Ridge Public Library

● Monday 18 February
○ ACT Arts Centre (Family Day)

● Tuesday 19 February
○ Kanaka Elementary School

○ Maple Ridge Public Library

● Thursday 21 February
○ Kanaka Elementary School
○ Thomas Haney High School

During these public workshops we collected and documented approximately 540 unique patterns.  We had a wonderful turn out and we collected amazing patterns from local people of all ages.  For more information and images about the workshops and the project see our Facebook page.

Tags | Art, Colour, Community, Design, Interconnections, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Networks, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Ceramic Tile Colour Selection

Maple Ridge community members were asked to submit photographs of their local landscape to the Maple Ridge Community Mosaic Facebook and Instagram pages to help inspire the colour palette for the new public artwork to be located at the newly renovated Maple Ridge Leisure Centre.

Based on the ~150 public submissions we received over Fall 2018, we selected twelve representative colours to be used for the project.

The thousands of cardboard tiles we made for the following community pattern making workshop series were carefully matched to these same twelve colours.

We organized the mosaic colour palette into smaller, seasonally-themed palettes and then rotated through the palettes at each public workshop to ensure that the all the colours were balanced and would work well together.

Thank you to everyone online who submitted their beautiful images of sunrises, sunsets, alpenglow, winter mornings, giant forests, lush meadows, sublime lakes, mighty rivers, and native wildlife and wildflowers.  The images below show how your images helped to inspire the mosaic colour selection.

Tags | Aesthetic, Art, Colour, Community, Design, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Process, Tile

CBC Vancouver’s Hidden Streams

Spacemakeplace is very interested in Vancouver’s hidden streams.  Check out this short video article by CBC’s Uytae Lee about the history of some Vancouver’s urban streams and daylighting initiatives around the world.  For more information about Vancouver’s streams see our blog post Lost Streams of Vancouver .

Tags | Lost Streams, Networks, Public Space, Water

TTC Sherbourne: Tom Thomson Colour Palette

The Sherbourne Station Community Mosaic will use a set of 12 colours that are inspired by the palette of iconic Canadian painter, Tom Thomson.

Colour testing by Interstyle Ceramic & Glass of the twelve colours chosen for the TTC Sherbourne Community Mosaic

Thomas John Thomson, painter (born 5 August 1877 in Claremont, ON; died 8 July 1917 in Algonquin Provincial Park, ON). An early inspiration for what became The Group of Seven, Tom Thomson was one of the most influential and enduringly popular Canadian artists of the early part of the twentieth century. His paintings The West Wind (1917) and Jack Pine (1916-1917) are familiar Canadian icons.  Thomson was a master colourist.

Thomson was one of the first artists in residence at the Studio Building, located at 25 Severn Street, in the Rosedale ravine immediately east of the above-ground Ellis portal that brings subway trains into and out of the north end of the Bloor-Yonge subway station, a short walking distance from Sherbourne Station. His studio’s site and positioning takes advantage of the northern exposure that illuminates the artist’s canvas with very even, neutral light.  Completed in 1914, the nonprofit facility was financed by Lawren Harris, heir to the Massey-Harris farm machinery fortune, and Dr James MacCallum.

Thomson would spend the summers in Algonquin Park and winter at the Studio Building in a refurbished a workmen’s shed on the east side of the building that MacCallum had converted so Thomson could work in an environment closer to his beloved wilderness settings.

Tags | Aesthetic, Art, Community, Design, History, Infrastructure, Interconnections, Mosaic, Nature, Networks, Ontario, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Public Transport, Sherbourne, Tessellation, Tile, Tom Thomson, Toronto, Transit, TTC, Urban

TTC Sherbourne: Community Workshops

Over three weeks in March and April, 2018, we led 24 community pattern-making workshops at seven different venues located within a 5-10 min walking radius of TTC Sherbourne Station.  We met with approximately 450 local community members, from kindergarten children to senior citizens, who contributed over 700 unique triangle patterns to this public art project. We are amazed!

Check out all of the pattern design galleries on the Sherbourne Station Community Mosaic Facebook page!

After a brief introduction to the project, participants were invited to create their own triangular patterns by arranging colourful cardboard tiles on special templates.  Twelve different colours reference the bold palette of Tom Thomson, a famous Canadian painter who once had a studio in the nearby Rosedale Ravine. When completed, every pattern was photographed and catalogued, and the individual or group of artists were given the opportunity to provide their name to be included on the public artwork plaque as a contributor.

Later this year, ceramic tile mosaics will be installed at multiple locations around TTC Sherbourne Station.  The mosaics will be assembled from custom-made tiles, manufactured in Canada from recycled glass. Each tile will be twice as large as the cardboard tiles used in the workshops.

The final mosaic pieces will be inspired by the patterns collected from community members.  Parts of individual patterns will be woven together to form new and complex patterns representing the creativity and interconnectivity of the local community.  

We greatly appreciate the hospitality, enthusiasm and support that we have received.  We would like to give special thanks to those who assisted in hosting the workshops: David Crichton, Rose Avenue Junior Public School; Shabana Sohail, Community Matters Toronto; Simon Storey, Rosedale Junior Public School; Allyson Payne, Branksome Hall School; Suja Selvaraj, St. James Town Community Corner; Suzanne Fernando, Toronto Public Library – St James Town Branch; Rick Lee, Wellesley Community Centre; Jaymie Sampa, 519 Space for Change.  Individual pattern-making participants will be acknowledged on a plaque that will be located near the station entrance.

The Sherbourne Station Community Mosaic public artwork has been commissioned by the Toronto Transit Commission as part of the Easier Access and Second Exit Program.

Tags | Art, Community, Design, History, Infrastructure, Interconnections, Mosaic, Networks, Ontario, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Public Transport, Sherbourne, Tessellation, Tile, Toronto, Transit, TTC, Urban

Livable Cities 2017: Sensing the City

Livable Cities 2017 – 2nd Annual Symposium

April 13, 2017

Anvil Centre. New Westminster, BC.

Thanks to Livable Cities 2017 for inviting Rebecca to talk about her practice and to give a presention on how our surroundings can stimulate our senses and help inform how we identify with a particular place.

“Livable Cities” brings together interdisciplinary research, creative inquiry and city planning methods to explore current city development through sound, smell and other embodied perspectives. Presented by Simon Fraser University and hosted by the City of New Westminster, this one-day symposium will take up various disciplinary approaches, including architecture, community development, and socio-cultural issues. The event will include panels and talks, sensory workshops and sound art presentations. Communities in flux across the Lower Mainland present unique opportunities to engage with city planning strategies, urban densification, and the impact of soundscapes, smellscapes and mobilities on local urban environments.

Tags | Art, Community, Design, Infrastructure, Interconnections, Networks, New Westminster, Public Space, SFU, Urban

Calder Community Pattern Making Workshops

Post-Workshops Update:

11×17 tile photo documentation – compilation of 137 Calder Community Patterns

Tags | Alberta, Art, Calder, Community, Design, Edmonton, Interconnections, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile

Calder Branch Mosaic: Free Pattern-Making Workshops

Tags | Alberta, Art, Calder, Community, Design, Edmonton, Interconnections, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile, Urban