Table of Contents Vimy Ridge Memorial Park Winnipeg, 2005-06 spmb_projects
Table of Contents was the response to a national competition sponsored by the Public Art program of the Winnipeg Arts Council. Inspired by the existing park tables at Vimy Ridge Memorial Park, a table with sculptural proportions was programmed for multiple activities by diverse park users. To develop a situation where interaction is valued – the return of the public – we invited the neighbours of the park to contribute with memorialising words about community life.
LIVING HISTORY
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Being involved with the arts can have a lasting and transforming effect on many aspects of people’s lives. This is true not just for individuals, but also for neighbourhoods, communities, regions and entire generations, whose sense of identity and purpose can be changed through art.
Art that is rooted in a “listening” self, that cultivates the intertwining of self and Other, suggests a flow-through experience which is not delimited by the self but extends into the community through modes of reciprocal empathy. The audience becomes an active component of the work and is part of the process.
Peter Hewitt, ‘Who will be transformed?’ Ambitions For the Arts , The Arts Council of England website, February 2002.
Suzi Gablik, ‘Connective Aesthetics: Art After Individualism’, in Lacy, Suzanne (ed.). Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995
Monuments, including the ones in Vimy Ridge Park, commemorate heroic past moments. Even though Vimy Ridge represented a victory towards freedom and democracy, creating a hopeful path for generations to come, maybe, after these 88 years, we are on a historical threshold where the notion of celebration will also shift, promoting and celebrating peace and communication among people. Public art challenges the traditional notion of monument by reinventing public space, unfolding new modes of celebration, placing the public at the centre. Our notion of a living history addresses qualities of the present, to remember the present as it is lived, about and for the people that are alive and participating in the life of a community.
If the project is not about other heroes from other times but it is about the people, everyday heroes of the present, then it is about the people of Wolseley, the primary users of the park. The first character of public space is the public. For this project we have proposed an engagement strategy to create an opportunity for direct participation of the community. If public space is about the people, then the people should participate in the process.
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