In the once industrial area of Al Quoz, on the western end of rapidly urbanizing Dubai, public green spaces can be hard to come by. But the concrete-covered factory district actually abounds with wild gardens — or so the artist Muhannad Shono has found — you just need to know where to look for them.
Snaking out from alleyways or springing up between sidewalk slabs, the Saudi artist noticed the small plots and patches hiding in plain sight. Everywhere, growing beneath the desert city’s gigantic arsenal of air-conditioning units, you can find a variety of plant life, fed by the machine’s constant drip, drip, drip. Shono wondered if that waste water could be diverted to coax all those accidental gardens out from their hiding spots.
Working with the Toronto-based curator Tairone Bastien as part of his A Feral Commons project, Shono’s installation, A Forgotten Place, transforms the laneway between some Al Quoz warehouses into a public oasis filled with medicinal and edible native plants, all irrigated by the runoff from the nearby businesses’ AC units. The artist’s site intervention intends to breathe life into an overlooked space. And it does so in a way that’s friendly to human and non-human beings alike.
Muhannad Shono, A Forgotten Place (detail), 2024, at Alserkal Avenue in Dubai, UAE. (Photo by Hyku Desesto)
Last month, Bastien presented the newly-completed work at a symposium in Toronto focused on sustainability in public art. Hosted by the Bentway, which develops, operates and programs the public space beneath Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway, the conference brought together more than 30 cultural organization dedicated to the exhibition of temporary public art to discuss how they can responsibly do their work — and how the nature of that work changes — in the midst of a climate emergency.
It’s a conversation that’s been building in the worlds of exhibition-making and museum studies over the past decade. But the dialog has lagged a bit in the context of public art, says Anna Gallagher-Ross, the Bentway’s senior manager of programming who was one of the symposium’s principal organizers. With art professionals from across Canada and beyond gathering to share habits, challenges, efficiencies, cases and exciting projects with notable enthusiasm, the conference suggests theirs is a conversation that’s long overdue.
“A lot of people were saying this is a turning point for our field,” Gallagher-Ross says.
Of course, as in any nascent sphere, establishing some best practices is crucial groundwork. And so representatives from the interdisciplinary research group the Synthetic Collective, Western University’s Centre for Sustainable Curating and the non-profit city-builder Evergreen presented a preliminary guide they’ve devised in partnership with the Bentway to promote “more environmentally conscious ways to curate, create and produce public art.”
One example proposed by the free-to-download poster is to create an “afterlife plan” for the artwork. The guide asks: “Does it tour to locales within a reasonable distance to amplify the artist’s work and sustain them through additional artist fees? Does it get installed again somewhere else in the city? Can local partnerships be forged to donate used materials? Can a circular economy of material exchange amongst artists and organizations be supported?”
As the symposium unfolded, participants heard about groups across the country already spearheading precisely this kind of work.
Quebec City’s Exmuro, a prolific producer and exhibitor of public art, presented artworks by Robert Hengeveld and Mia Feuer to highlight their organization’s innovative circulation program, whereby temporary works enjoy subsequent lives — and sometimes permanent homes — in other venues, as opposed to languishing in studios and storage spaces after their initial installation.
Hengeveld’s Rotating Tree is a living deciduous tree that slowly spins in place using a clever subterranean mechanism. The kinetic sculpture has already been shown in multiple installations, with its tree permanently replanted after each exhibition. Feuer’s artwork is a vintage Zamboni salvaged from the scrap yard and transformed into the hull of a geode, with reused plastic waste sparkling inside the resurfacer’s body like crystals. “Eighty per cent of the sculpture came out of garbage cans,” the artist says. A hit at Exmuro’s Passages Insolites festival, where it debuted, the spectacular Feuer installation is an example of a work available from the organization’s circulation catalogue just waiting to be reactivated.
Meditations on Earthly Materials and Temperatures. 2022 installation view with EXMURO, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, Quebec City, QC 1976 Zamboni ice resurfacing machine sourced from a scrap yard outside of Montreal, plastic trash, epoxy. (Photo courtesy of the artist.)
Suzanne Carte, another presenter, calls herself a “cultural dumpster diver.” The curator was spurred into action after noticing the “alarming rate” of waste across her sector. She began her punk upstart the Artist Material Fund by showing up with a truck at the loading docks and garbage holds of cultural institutions to salvage what materials — like leftover paint, lumber and old lighting — might be reused by artists (who can take from the fund freely).
Although her AMF is still the scrappy, self-funded service designed to relocate materials and diminish waste that she launched 10 years ago, she’s developed so many relationships in the industry that she’s now “invited in through the front door.” Carte’s presentation ended with a pitch: successful though the AMF may be, she can’t continue the operation alone. Whether it’s money, time, space or muscle, she needs help.
Perhaps the most surprising revelation of all came from the Bentway itself. The organization undertook a materials audit for the duration of its Summer 2023 season and found it was able to rent, repurpose or recycle 87 per cent of its production materials. This includes 7,500 pounds of bamboo from Leeroy New’s otherworldly banyan tree installation that snaked around the highway support beams and the exterior of the Fort York Visitor Centre, which went to the Kortright Centre for Conservation’s farm to be used as stakes and mulch after deinstallation.
If it seems in any way displeasing to turn a sculpture as majestic as New’s Balete Bulate Bituka into leaning posts for tomatoes, then perhaps it’s time we rethink what our public art does. One of the symposium’s key messages — voiced by numerous speakers — was that if any part of public art’s job is to reflect the values and priorities of the public, then it can’t only concern sustainability, it ought to be sustainable, too. The uncomfortable but evident truth, after all, is that every facet of our lives needs to be made more sustainable.
Leeroy New, Balete Bulate Bituka, 2023. Bamboo, scaffolding, discarded plastics, wood, plants. Commissioned by The Bentway. (Photo by Jack Landau)
“Public art is really what is going to raise awareness and tell the stories we need to tell about the climate emergency,” Gallagher-Ross says. “And I think in order to really, in good conscience, raise awareness, we also need to be able to replicate that in how we create the work. We need to put our money where our mouth is.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.
