Sarah Fuller
From CAMPER
Watch for Truck Gallery’s Contemporary Art Mobile Public Exhibition Rig at summer festivals
Truck Gallery’s CAMPER project rides again this summer for its third year of travelling programming that takes art out of the gallery and into the city. The CAMPER or Contemporary Art Mobile Public Exhibition Rig is a converted Dodge RV that doubles as the mode of transportation of the gallery’s roaming art exhibitions and workshops.
Z’s by the C takes aim at a recent piece of legislation that artists Eric Moschopedis and Mia Rushton say is “not only an affront to Calgary’s marginalized and fatigued citizens but also an attack on public dreaming.” The collaborative duo is using their playful CAMPER project to respond to a new city bylaw that outlaws public sleeping by encouraging participants to do just that. Their invitation to take a nap in public comes complete with a sleeping mask and the assurance of a volunteer-patrolled sleeping-zone that is safe for dreaming without threat of being harassed by police.
In work-obsessed Calgary Moschopedis and Rushton’s temporary sleeping zone also scrutinizes the kinds of “progress” that we typically place value upon. While the legislation creates a more heavily regulated public sphere it doesn’t necessarily create a more restful or benevolent place to live. Catching some z’s as a form of performative social critique may have had more political impact if it was situated closer to downtown during the work week. Still the project calls for a more imaginative and healthy dialogue around how city hall and city inhabitants use public and private spaces.
While the early July workshop Domesti-city didn’t fully materialize a strong critical position with its decorated cutouts of city councilors CAMPER’s upcoming projects are certainly a welcome (and critically relevant) addition to the arts programs during summer months. In fact Truck’s CAMPER project draws parallels between many international initiatives that are designed to take traveling art to the streets and highlight the connections between art activism and the public artistic production and democratic participation. The best of CAMPER’s summer workshops manage to insert themselves into our city spaces and tap into this dialogue at the same time.
Other recent projects that feature this combined approach to art and activism include a touring collection of artist zines and books driven cross-continent by the Bookmobile Collective and Frau Fiber’s “Portable Textile Reconstruction Unit/Pedal Powered Sewing Machine” that travelled to flood-ravaged New Orleans. Kelly Andres’s Urban Habitat Laboratory brings a pedal-powered environmentally sustainable laboratory to the streets complete with a green roof solar panels and a chicken coop presented by the M:ST Performative Art Festival in October.
CAMPER will make an appearance during the M:ST festival this year too as Kay Burns and Tiki Mulvihill join the residents of urban campgrounds in CAMP. Burns always flirts with campiness as her performative personas are often costumed like outlandish scientists in search of odd knowledge. Here Mulvihill joins her as they make like urban sociologists and attempt to discover the unwritten rules of urban camping. Like Z’s by the C this performance also has the potential to highlight municipal policy on campsites within the city and their implications for the campers who make a life at the campgrounds as an alternative to expensive housing homeless shelters or sleeping on the street.
CAMPER at a glance
Catch Sarah Fuller’s Alternative Processes in Photography: Cyanotype Workshop on Saturday August 9 during the Banff Culture Weekend (visit www.banff.ca for more info).
Emerging Artist Shyra DeSouza hosts Arcanum on Saturday August 16 at BBQ on the Bow in Eau Claire Festival Market.
Z’s by the C by Eric Moschopedis and Mia Rushton runs on Sunday August 31 at BBQ on the Bow in Eau Claire Festival Market.
During September’s ArtCity Festival CAMPER gets crafty with Stefanie Wong and Marci Simkulet at Olympic Plaza for YARN ALERT! and highlights the role of roaming new media in public space with Valerie Le Blanc’s roving Media Pack Board project. Check www.truck.ca for details.
