Bicycle Rehabilitation Project: A Traveling Interactive Art Piece

Artist: Michael Flaherty

Date: May 29 to 21, 2007 at the Ministry of Casual Living, June 1 and 2 at Open Space 

 Artist Talk: Saturday, June 2, 12pm.

"How long has it been since your last tune up? Does your bicycle work the way you want it to? Do you care about the impact that your life and lifestyle make on the environment? If you want a better world and a better ride, you will probably enjoy taking part."

The Bicycle Rehabilitation Project depended heavily on audience participation, and each individual participant strengthened the message that the project created. Its creator Michael Flaherty was on site both at the Ministry of Casual Living and Open Space to provide participants with a bicycle tune up.

Bicycling is not a magical cure-all for the energy and pollution problems that plague our society. It is still dependent upon the questionable practice of mass-production, and bicycles themselves are subject to the conflicts delineated by the quest for commodity, wealth and status. Despite its imperfection, it is, at the very least, a workable compromise - a negotiable middle road between the impossibility of navigating today’s car-oriented landscape on foot and the intolerable option of burning gasoline just to get to the grocery store. But this project is less about the impossible idea of utopia than it is about the possibility of making a dystopic reality just a little bit better. The title of the exhibition speaks not only of the practice of repairing bicycles, but also of the restorative and relational powers that bicycles provide for participants in the project.

Bicycles were creatively fixed on site. 

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