This is My City : City of Magpies
City of Magpies explores collecting, scavenging and compiling as artistic process.
Artist Biography
This is My City is part of the City of Calgary Community Cultural Development (CCD) initiative, a partnership between social services and arts organizations. The project is multi-disciplinary in approach and is designed to provide the homeless citizens of Calgary with opportunities to express their experiences through creative action.
Essay
These works are the results of a series of assemblage workshops, working with people accessing the services of the shelter system in Calgary.
As facilitators, we approached as outsiders. Each session involved tentatively carving out and occupying a small corner within common spaces or art rooms. Tables were stacked with materials; old bicycle tires, styrofoam plates, bottle caps, alongside hammers, screwdrivers and glue guns. Each time, the success of the project depended purely on the energy and enthusiasm of anyone curious enough to explore the random collection of materials, and to investigate ideas and make opportunities to create together. Suggestion, instruction and inspiration flowed back and forth freely between participants and the artist 'mentors'.
The inspiration for City of Magpies draws from a long history in Calgary of collaborative arts activity utilizing found materials, spaces and networks to produce art, from the the long-running free-form collaborative activities that took place in the creative junkyard that was Graceland, to Artist Trading Cards, 'space for space', and to the individual artistic practices of artists such as Jeff Viner and the Arbour Lake Sghool. Common to all of these activities is a spirit of generosity, providing a space for free exploration of the possibilities of materials and ideas.
This project was made possible through the support of the City of Calgary through the “This is My City” initiative, which invited artists to act in mentoring capacities with the homeless 'community'. Equally important, the project was also made possible through the donations of time, energy and material that we were able to access through our networks and supports. These networks and supports closely parallel the structures that currently exist to support people experiencing homelessness. Artists are not strangers to precarity, and often depend on official and informal networks of support. In line with this, the project did not propose an end to homelessness, or offer transferable skill sets. Instead, the project represented a space for us to understand and share a common situation, free of ideology and prescriptive purpose, to explore and create.
- Linda Hawke, Tomas Jonsson & Eveline Kolijn, 2009