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Green Sleeves

greensleeves

A few people emailed us about this project (thanks for that!!) and I’ve since seen it on a number of other blogs, so it’s about time I got around to posting it on here. Green Sleeves by AT.AW uses a simple pattern to create planters from the layers of old wheat pasted posters.

The method is great—looking around the city (in this case, Toronto) and understanding the specificities that create opportunities for intervention in the city. The results seem to be a mixed bag, in terms of plants surviving longer than 24 hours; in some cases, the plants are stolen, dry out, or are torn down for more posters.

The project is generating a dialogue and for that it is successful and it may be able to translate better to a city where its illegal postering community is less vigilant.

[via Torontoist]

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A City Renewal Project

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]

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Wonderfully Canadian: Anti-DMCA Protest Stapled to Posts

You’re probably wondering what’s going on in this picture. The band The Craft Economy has hit the streets with their own protest agaisnt bill C-61. From Boing Boing:

The disc, containing a demo of “Menergy,” a track off of the band’s upcoming record (due late August) isn’t simply Creative Commons licensed music like their previous hydro pole-only release, this time it’s a Bill C-61 protest too (see that little piece of paper sticking out of the back of the disc? Yeah, that’s the protest part). It reads, in part: This is far and beyond and more bizarre than the heavily criticized DMCA in the USA. Copyright should protect the rights of artists and producers of creative content, but it should not suppress creative and artistic expression. The Craft Economy has licensed our music, including this CD, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 license. This license gives you the freedom to share our music with your friends and enemies, and remix and use it in new and creative ways, provided you attribute the work back to us, and you don’t make money off our work. It’s fair for you and us. This is the way art should work.)

Totally intense. For more information on what Bill C- 61 click here. No seriously, C-61 is super ridiculous and way harder than the American version. Another reason to silence corporate lobbyists FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY WTF.

Actually, I was talking to a friend who was reading the article in depth and said that the majority government was looking at it with shifty eyes. I hope they see what we see.