The Crosswalk The Crosswalk validates a well-travelled but informal footway across Barrington Street, between the Turning Point Emergency Shelter and the outreach basement of the Brunswick Street United Church. People navigate four lanes in the pursuit of daily needs. Using the signs and language of the city itself,The Crosswalk temporarily defines a human space in no man’s land — an acknowledgment of how the city really works and where its movement patterns really are.The crosswalk signs were removed the following morning, paint takes longer to fade.
Venue The Venue questions what public space really is — designed space for human use, leftover fragments between buildings, or a type of mask intended for public deception. Each of three sides of the venue contain small viewports that frame views of public Institutions — the Public Library, the Halifax Courthouse, and the Technical University of Nova Scotia. Questions are written on the inside of the walls and markers left for responses: evidence of human interaction. ‘How does this space make you feel?’ ‘Who will take this down and why?’ ‘Where is public, where is private?’ Surveillance is reversed.The Venue is constructed on what most would deem public space — the lawn of the Public Library allowed it to stand for over 20 hours before being dismantled by library staff.
Boxmen (inspired by Kobo Abe’s The Boxman. New York:Alfred A Knopf, 1974.) The Boxmen are portable constructions enacted on public space. Each Boxman views the city from a moving framed view, interaction with the city occurring at the surface of the box.The urban void — the outside — becomes so expansive and impersonal that the private — the inside — becomes precious and one seeks solace in a space where one can control interaction at a definable plane. Compared to the densely built city of the past, the open expanses of the modern city begin to outweigh the built object. Here, the inversion of emphasis forces attention on the object, the box. Both parties are made uncomfortable as the Boxman is stared at, isolated and detached from his environment, and the city loses the sense of comfort found in homogeneity. Many people were amused by the extraordinary presence of a Boxman.Two of the Boxmen were asked to remove their box before completing their journey, one was denied access to a shopping centre, and one was interrogated by the police.
Public Mischief Tracey MacTavish
Espièglerie en public : une critique active des espaces publics de nos villes L’existence d’un tissu urbain non apparent, constitué de voies de communication et de lieux fréquentés qui ne font pas partie du visage connu d’une ville, se dévoile lorsqu’on tradictoire et faux de la per- ception que l’on a de l’espace public est mis en évidence lorsqu’une ville, dans ce cas-ci Halifax, se trouve confrontée à trois installations inattendues.
rue Barrington, entre le refuge Turning Point Emergency Shel- ter et le sous-sol de l’église Brunswick Street United, où des services d’aide sont offerts aux plus démunis. À cet endroit de la rue, les gens circulent sur quatre voies à la recherche de ce qu’il leur faut pour satisfaire leurs besoins quotidi- ens. Identifié à l’aide de pan -
neaux et d’indications de la ville elle-même, le Crosswalk délimite temporairement un espace humain dans ce no man’s land. Le Venue remet en question ce qu’on entend par « espace public ». S’agit-il d’un espace réservé aux humains, de frag- ments d’espace perdus entre
observe la façon dont les gens de la rue vivent dans les espaces publics d’une ville. Dans le cadre du projet dont il est question ici, l’aspect con-
Le Crosswalk reconnaît l’existence d’un passage pour piétons très fréquenté, mais non officiel, qui se situe, dans la
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O n S ite review
T ransformations
I ssue 7 2002
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