What Art is For Part 2: Dirt City:Dream City

By Blair Brennan – Part 2 of 2

Aaron Paquette, “Everyone is Welcome”, photo by Chelsea Boos

Regular readers of these Writers in Residence posts (if such a thing exists) will have read my apoplectic outpouring on The Works and Art Walk in Part 1 of “What Art is For”. I would be one of those guys who seethed and complained without offering a solution but one was conveniently provided to me by the recent Dirt City: Dream City project.

DC: DC was an exceptional meeting and mixing of artists and organizers of varying backgrounds and experience. Inspired by transitory public art interventions in other cities, this project culminated in a public outdoor display that attempted to employ visual art as a tool or “weapon” (if we are to believe Picasso – See Part 1) for community transformation. Site specific works by 15 artists were presented in this project led by American artist and curator Kendal Henry. As one might expect of a project this size, some artists were more successful than others but all of their attempts were enough to get my attention and admiration. The work revealed artists and organizers visual and, in the best work, community sensitivity. This was evident in the artist’s steadfast refusal to back down from issues affecting life in the inner-city and the site specific placement of works in predominately empty city lots in The Quarters downtown (located from Jasper Avenue to 104 Avenue between 95 and 96 streets).

Holly Newman, “Crow’s Advice”, Photo courtesy of the artist

My one major criticism, that the display was planned for a ridiculously short ten day period, seems to have been recognized and remedied by organizers. It was recently announced that DC: DC works will remain on display until the end of August. That’s great though I’d still like to see some of these works with that first layer of winter snow on them (but, hey it’s Edmonton. That could be in two or three weeks!)

The project included online and virtual projects, radio, light and video projection, performance art, open houses and, one imagines, much behind-the-scenes negotiation and planning to keep all constituents happy. In focusing on the public exhibition, I realize that I describe but a small apart of this project. There are many other components to DC: DC and I urge you to check them out online.

Carly Greene, “Simulacrum”, photo by Chelsea Boos

Nickelas Johnson, “Ripped Off”, photo by Chelsea Boos

Attendance numbers for DC: DC will be no where near those of The Works or Art Walk. And it is perhaps revealing that more people would rather spend their time at concurrent events like A Taste of Edmonton, in Churchill Square (500,000 people, by their estimate) than take a short walk east to DC: DC. The numbers don’t really matter though. If we’ve learned anything from The Works and Art Walk it may be that no amount of carnival-esque tents and milling crowds will accelerate a process of personal self discovery made possible by meaningful art. Art can take hold of a viewer but it takes some skill on the part of artists, curators, arts event organizers and artistic directors to slyly coax, or sometimes shock, those summer-sunlight-opiated-masses out of their reverie. Go to Art Walk and The Works if you are looking for art to hide that place where you punched a hole in the drywall. Support projects like Dirt City: Dream City if you believe that art can help us understand “what it is to be a fucking human being”, as David Foster Wallace famously described writing.

Jes McCoy, “Futile Fancy”, photo by Chelsea Boos

Mackenzy Albright and Rachelle Liette Bowen, “Lonely Mountain”, photo by Chelsea Boos

Please visit the Dirt City: Dream City and Edmonton Arts Council websites for further information: http://dirtcity-dreamcity.ca/ and http://www.edmontonarts.ca/media_releases/

Please visit the Edmonton Journal’s Fish Griwkowsky’s photo essay of Dirt City: Dream City (but remember to bring your 3D glasses).

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