Outdoor Project

Artists: Terence Johnson (Halifax) , Ellen Rothenberg (Boston, MA) , Catherine MacLean (Vancouver)), Alan Storey (Vancouver) and Gary Kibbins (Banff) 

Date: July 1 to 31, 1983

Reception: July 1

Artists' Panel Discussion: July 2 

In the spring of 1982 Open Space advertised nationally for submissions from artists to produce works in the city. By the December deadline over one hundred artists from across Canada and the United Stated had send proposals for the Outdoor Project. From these proposals a jury of artists and curators selected four projects to be built in Victoria in the summer of 1983. 

The Open Space Outdoor Project was modeled after similar projects that had taken place in Europe, the United States and other cities in Canada, such as the permanent sculpture garden in downtown Toronto which continued to feature temporary installations of sculpture by Canadian artists. The city of Seattle through the Seattle Arts Commission also sponsored several public art works every year. "Artpark" in Lewsiton, New York was one of the most well-known institutions that consistently sponsored outdoor art works at the time. 

Public watching as Ellen Rothenberg performs Chicken, Money, Job Water in a storefront window, Outdoor Projects, 1983 

Outdoor projects are designed to support contemporary art and living artists, to enhance the cultural climate of a city and to introduce the public to the current concerns of international and local artists. In this spirit, Open Space sponsored five artists to produce a work for downtown Victoria. 

Sculptor Terrence Johnson carved two large fifteen-foot long cedar logs. The squared logs were shaped into the form of ships which were installed 50 feet from one another. The direction of the ships implied a collision course and all its consequences. As Johnson said: "I am interested in the perception of the non-static physical relationship of 'dumb' inanimate forms. The indirect threat of collision activates a psychological content which I find of particular interest in regard to such forms." 

Multimedia performance artist, Ellen Rothenberg, performed in an empty store-front window. She utilized props, lights, film, slide projections and various other display materials. Rothenberg considered herself a visual artists rather than an 'actress.' What separated her work from theatre was a primary concern with images and gestures. She was not interested in recreating an illusionistic space, like that of the theatre procenium, but in exploring and colliding with the concrete and specific dimension of a chosen site and audience. Her performance work evolved from experiences in her daily life and environment and from the interior world of dreams and fantasies.

Ellen Rothenberg, Man on the Street, 1983  

Ellen Rothenberg, The Beekeeper, 1983 

Sculptors Catherine MacLean and Alan Storey collaborated for the Outdoor Project. In the previous three years, MacLean was primarily concerned with the experience of sounds in specific environments, whereas Storey's work was based on physical-spatial explorations of kinetic sculptures. Their joint project was a fusion of sculpture and sound. Loudspeakers and low pitch horns were installed in cavities found along major sidewalks in downtown Victoria. The sound from the openings beneath aluminum grates was activated and regulated by pedestrians that passed over pressure sensitive pads. The sounds that rose out of the cavities were similar to the deep resonance of foghorns and other wind instruments.

Multimedia artist Gary Kibbins focused on an investigation of advertising methods and consumerism. In his project, the window of an empty storefront were turned into projection screens that showed still and moving images. Kibbins was interested in the relationship between the meaning of an image and its surrounding context. He manipulated and disrupted the message of advertisements by displacing them—by taking them out of one context and inserting them into another.