NOTES ON PLAY, 2023
Public art installation (vinyl on glass), postcards editions.
Using the Canadian Museum of History’s board game archive (originally the Elliott Avedon board game collection at the University of Waterloo) as a starting point, I borrowed text/phrases from the instructions, descriptions, slogans, etc. from the +1300 of board games in the collection. By scattering the extracted phrases throughout the city, this work activates the archive by asking the public to consider the city as a life-sized game board for the duration of the
Ontario Culture Days festival.
These phrases predominantly occupied OCTranspo bus shelters, allowing for the buses to, in a sense, become pawns or game pieces as they drive throughout the city on their daily routes. Installed strategically around Ottawa, they reference and critique what the city represents in both a national and global capacity. In addition to the vinyl text installations, four phrases were made into postcard editions that were distributed and available around the city of Ottawa as takeaways.
Map to all the locations available
here.
NOTES ON PLAY text.
Images courtesy of Ontario Culture Days.
Special thanks to Ruth Burns, Keira Park, Claudia Zilstra, Noor Khan, Kaitlyn Patience, Dave Dyment, Jenny Ellison, Chloé Oulette-Riendeau, Ann Rae, the Canadian Museum of History, OCTranspo, SAW Centre, and the Ottawa Art Gallery.