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An
Interview with Holly Ward, by Heidi Nagtegaal // The Pavilion
// January 8, 2010
Holly Ward has been working at the
Langara College Centre for Art in Public Spaces for this academic year as an
Artist in Residence. Her piece, The Pavilion, is now finished
construction and open to the public until April 2010, as a project space for
Ward and a centre for dialogue.
The Pavilion is located at
Langara College, 100 West 49th avenue in Vancouver. It is between Main and
Cambie. The Canada Line Langara stop is only 2 blocks west. You can also view Pavilion on the
web at: http://hollywardpavilion.blogspot.com/
HN: Hi Holly! Thank you for accepting to do an interview with
me! I have been following your
work for a few years now, and it’s exciting to see the concepts that you’ve
been orbiting in your practice flushed out in such an interactive, and public
way.
HW:
Thanks Heidi, it’s exciting for me too! I am really looking forward to
this period of the next few months, as the Pavilion, which has been such an
engrossing project from a labor point of view, moves forward into a functional
project space. I have learned so much already through the act of building it,
and am now embarking on a whole aspect of social engagement and collaboration
that I am really looking forward to.
HN: The Langara Art for Public Spaces Program is unique:
the way an interaction with the students is built into it’s mandate, with
public art framed as an educational opportunity to build conversations, not
only with the Fine Arts students, but with the entire school, and its learning
community. This is a radical shift from the gallery context in which I have
seen your work previously.
How has this experience helped to
frame The Pavilion?
HW: Well, when asked to submit a proposal to do a 9-month public
art residency at Langara, I wanted to do something that emphasized experimental
learning and artistic development through interdisciplinary practices. I have
done a few pieces in the past that used Buckminster Fuller’s engineering
designs in a formal sense, and have also worked with his poetry, but this
seemed like an opportunity not only to get to actually construct one of his
designs, but also to enact a project similar to his work with the experimental
Black Mountain College in the 1940’s.
HN: Tell me more about how you see
Buckminster Fuller, geodesic domes, and Black Mountain College and how you see
them connecting with Langara; both are places of learning, but with different
mandates, or focus points.
HW: The context of Langara is clearly
different, not only in that it is not an experimental art school but a
community college with a small fine arts program embedded within it, but also
that by building a geodesic dome today, there is all this associated baggage
that goes along with this specific structure. Especially here on the west
coast, people have a certain amount of familiarity with this kind of structure,
and I wanted to create a shared space that held enough resonance to elicit
reactions and the desire to participate. I have found that people from earlier
generations often have stories related to domes, and that seeing a new dome evokes memories and
nostalgia for days gone by, but that younger people are extremely curious and
seem to want to connect with it somehow and create new experiences. In terms of
what architecture can do, I was interested in exploring any remnant of
potential that might still exist in relation to the geodesic dome. It stands as
a model for difference, but also seems to evoke a sense of loss or failure.
Of
course, I am aware that there is a possibility for the project to be read as an
exercise in nostalgia that, because of my age, could not be sincere: that it
could be read as an effort to bring something from the past back to life under
a misguided notion that that could happen. But, I was willing to take that risk
because I wanted to see if there was something inherent in the distinct
‘otherness’ of this kind of building that could spark a process of creative
interaction and play.
HN:
This reminds me of a popular saying from Drop City, “You have to build
different structures, for the different thoughts.”
HW:
Yes, that is the kind of thinking I am working with here. Although the form of
the dome is familiar in some way, it remains distinctly ‘different’. There are
no right angles in a dome, and in this case are only used in the door and door
jam. Also the acoustics are really interesting. It functions in a very
different way than conventional architecture, and I think we can really respond
to that difference in that it generates unfamiliar readings and responses to
space, which leads us down different pathways. I think these cues allow us to
think about possibility as a pure concept, and to re-evaluate perceived
limitations in a way that extends beyond architecture. It really feels like a
space for ideas, and is also a very demanding space: conventional furniture
does not fit into it, and new solutions are constantly needed to solve basic
spatial relations.
For
example, the first exhibition in the Pavilion Ideas and Integrities
consists of a Utopian library. Since conventional bookshelves cannot be used in
the space, Buckminster Fuller designed a hexagonal bookshelf that hangs from 6
cables attached to the struts of the dome. The bookshelf can then be used in
the round, with books facing outward from six sides. The fact that the shelf is
suspended in the air seemed to me to be a perfect visual and spatial analogy to
utopian literature and speculative thinking. I then decided to complement this
shelf with 3 hammocks, so that all ‘furniture’ in the space was suspended,
which alludes to the timelessness of utopian thinking, and the notion that
these ideas are unfixed.
HN: Absolutely! In this manner, the ideas that you are working with are
completely timeless.
Conceptions of pure nostalgia, as you said, have no hold on this
project: we weren’t even alive
during Woodstock, Drop City or Black Mountain College. So, we don’t have the option of going
there. However, we can use that
same innovation to spin current events in a new way, without falling into
romanticism.
Although,
I’ll give it to you, Holly, your Geodesic Dome is gorgeous!
HW: Thanks Heidi. I was very fortunate to
have found a great builder to work with on his project. I had wanted to use
this opportunity to learn basic principles about building and the specifics of
dome building from someone, and develop a relationship through the project,
rather than, say, order a kit online, which you can do (but not for the
wood-shell type that we constructed). So I did some research on companies based
in BC, and I found one called Domespirit based in Summerland BC. I contacted
the owner, Dick Spencer to see if he might be interested in getting involved in
the project. We hit it off right away, and he was very enthusiastic and
extremely generous. He applies a lot of great principles not only to his work,
but to life as well, and I am really grateful for the experience we had
together. The design of the wood shell and construction methods are his. I also
worked with an architect friend, Julian Carnwright, who came up with the plan
for the front of the dome and the door, and the three of us brainstormed on the
exterior cladding. We ended up doing something fairly unconventional, but something
that has worked well with our limitations and the temporary nature of the
project.
HN: How was the experience of building it
with the students? How involved
did they get? Was there any
hesitation?
HW:
Well, Langara College has supported my project through a student work program
called SWAP. Ten students get paid to work with me on a part-time basis, and I
had as many of these students participate as I could. There were also other
students who showed up just because they were curious. They really contributed
a lot, and got invested in the project early on. The outer shell of the dome
was erected in just 2 and a half days, so I think that was really satisfying
and I hope rewarding for them.
HN: I’m sure it was!
The
Pavilion is the first of your projects (that I am aware of) that directly
involves the public, in a “social practice” spectrum. In your previous work, you were very much the artist, with
complete control (in as much as any of us has control) over the final
product. In The Pavilion, I see
you take on more of a facilitative/visionary role; how has this affected
you? What has it been like?
HW: Yes, this is a foray into social
practice that really relies on other people’s contributions in a way that I
have not previously explored with my work. ‘Island’, the work I showed the How
Soon is Now exhibition at the VAG last year, relied on volunteers to move a
large pile of dirt from one location to another in the gallery. But the
parameters were pretty set, and I retained a lot of control with the piece. The
Pavilion is more about offering a space for other artists, writers and
performers to come up with something in response to this particular context.
People seem genuinely excited by the space itself, I think due to some of the
reasons we talked about here, and the offers to contribute so far have been
amazing! The project has four months of programming, at which point I will
dismantle the structure and look for a permanent residence for it. But from the
number of offers to contribute to the project, even before it had opened to the
public, it seems that I could have easily come up with programming for a much
longer period. Who knows what can happen with it in the future? As for my own
role, I am really enjoying what is coming forward in terms of ideas and
contributions, and am so happy to actually be able to provide something. I’m
not sure what comes next for me. I feel like there is a backlog of works in me
just waiting to come out that will be solitary, studio-based works. But,
depending on where all this goes, I could see a lot of energy being created
through this way of working that I may want to pursue. Only time will tell!
Holly
Ward received her Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Guelph in
2006 after completing her undergraduate degrees in both Fine Arts and English
at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the University of New
Brunswick. Her work has been in a number of recent exhibitions including How
Soon is Now, Vancouver Art Gallery; Radical Rupture, Morris and Helen Belkin
Gallery, UBC; and Voice Overhead, Insa Art Space, Seoul, South Korea. Her most
recent solo exhibition was at Republic Gallery in Vancouver, 2009.
Initiated in August 2008, the Langara College Centre for Art in Public
Spaces is designed to inspire collaboration among students, professional
artists, and the community through creative projects. These projects include
Artists in Residence programs, guest speakers, and continually evolving
curricula. The integration of visiting professionals, collaborative exploration
and learning opportunities makes the program unique in Canada.
Heidi Nagtegaal is an artist, living and working in
Vancouver, BC. http://www.heidi-nagtegaal.com
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