A City Renewal Project from Dan Bergeron on Vimeo.
There are a lot more images of this work that better show the enormity of it and help to frame the reading of the description of it, but in some ways this video is a more interesting introduction (as time-lapse always is).
A City Renewal Project is a project by fauxreel and Specter that recreates a neighborhood full of abandoned storefronts inside a 4000 square foot warehouse at 39 Lisgar Avenue in Toronto (which is going to be demolished to put up a new condo). The project focuses on the state of decay within the city, renewing these dilapidated buildings as artistic monuments and documenting their history amidst the gentrified frenzy of urban change. The Mr. Loogie building you see in the above video is the entrance off the street into the warehouse.
The article in the Torontoist spells out some of the specifics of the installation as well as some of the politics surrounding it (the work is sponsored by Gallery 381, which receives financial support from Red Bull). That argument is detailed in an article in NOW.
I enjoy the project as it exists as a partial, imaginary archive of the city, and I enjoy it even more because it’s housed in a warehouse that’s going to be torn down in favour of gentrified architecture and space, but the more I think about it, the less I enjoy the project for those same reasons.
[via]