PUBLIC SPACE
Nicolas Fleming, Josh Vettivelu, Sahar Te, Waard Waard (with Petrina Ng)
March 1 - December 15, 2021
Visual Arts Centre Clarington
What does it mean for a gallery to create community-focused programs that respond to and inquire about art’s role as public engagement? The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (VAC) is pleased to present Public Space, a year-long transforming project founded on artistic and cultural collaboration. Over 2021, five artists will facilitate collaboration-based participatory and community-focused programming for underserved Durham Region groups and non-profit organizations. Public Space represents a new way that artists, community, and galleries can work together for inclusive experiences that specifically serve multiplistic publics.
Co-existing as artistic, cultural, and community-collaborations, each artist will transform the VAC Loft Gallery through ongoing architectural interventions that will facilitate cooperative skill-sharing workshops, group discussions, and educational opportunities for local equity-seeking groups. Working with a number of local community non-profit organizations, Artist Nicolas Fleming will collaborate with Sahar Te, Josh Vettivelu, Waard Ward and Syrus Ware to help design and produce site and project-specific environments for community-activated events. Featuring both individual and collaboratively created artworks, each project’s exhibition/participatory needs (display structures, furniture, physical environments) will be co-designed with Fleming and produced with his signature construction material practice. Fleming will recycle, adapt, and re-organize select components for each subsequent installation to feature each artist’s site-specific artwork. By featuring an evolving but malleable exhibition model, Public Space marks a radical new shift towards experimental iterative exhibition-making within VAC programming.
