Temporary art displays

Over the course of four Saturdays during the summer of 2016, community members contributed to the creation of a collaborative work of art outside Guelph Farmers’ Market as part of the City’s RBC Market Mornings program.

Guelph artist Glynis Logue invited market-goers to choose from a selection of printed images that depicted nature and the various airborne and wind propelled insects that inhabit it. Participants transferred these images onto pieces of repurposed aluminum and reclaimed local ash wood sourced locally through the City’s Forestry department.

Lisa Hirmer was the City’s 2016 Artist in Residence. Her Weather Watcher project captured artistic, poetic, and systematic recordings of the weather.

As part of the project, the artist designed and constructed a giant windsock which was installed on the roof of the Market Square pavilion.

While engaging the public using the vehicle of everyday conversations about weather, Hirmer also created artistic works that recorded and documented the affect changing weather had on the windsock, as well as the public’s interaction with it.

Carolyn Meili’s St. George’s Square bus shelter installation, entitled Ever Black and White, was selected by the Guelph Arts Council for the third round of its HATCH [pop-up art space] program. Carolyn’s project plays with positive and negative space and transformed the vacant transit shelter with a series of interlacing cutout black silhouette shapes based on children’s drawings.

The City partnered with University of Guelph students, Cyrille Viola and Calen Hamelin, to present their urban design project, the Wilson Street Promenade, which included a pop-up park and beach, Guelph Farmers’ Market vendors, temporary art installations, and activities for visitors.

Over the course of four Saturdays during the summer of 2015, community members contributed to the creation of a collaborative work of art outside Guelph Farmers’ Market as part of the City’s RBC Market Mornings program.

Artist Meredith Blackmore asked market visitors to paint “something that holds something that grows.” Once the pots, planters, nests and baskets were mapped out, participants had the chance to paint something growing out of these spaces. Over 130 children, youth and adults participated in painting the Idea Garden.

The City partnered with Guelph Arts Council to display Greg Denton’s 100 Portraits 100 Poppies: Sitting in Remembrance project in an unoccupied storefront in downtown Guelph as part of its HATCH [pop-up art space] program.

ReMediate.2 (homemaking) is the second phase of an ongoing collaboration between artist Christina Kingsbury, poet Anna Bowen, and Pollination Guelph to create a large seed paper quilt for the decommissioned Eastview Landfill. The first 1000 square foot section of quilt was planted in the spring of 2014 and became a living habitat for threatened pollinators and other indigenous species as it disintegrated. The second phase saw an expansion of the quilt and the installation of a Bee Hotel.

This beautification project was proposed by the Downtown Guelph Business Association and the Guelph Arts Council. Local artist, Jason Inglis, was enlisted to design artwork for a utility box located in St. George’s Square. The piece, called Post Oblivion, is black and white and was created with black Sharpie markers.

Fluxus Garden was an artistic intervention in St. George’s Square from August to October 2013. This small, portable garden was built with recycled materials and plants were offered to individuals and groups who wished to experiment with DIY farming techniques in the Square. Workshops about gardening and food security were also offered to the public as part of this project.

Former bus shelters in St. George’s Square were transformed into pop-up galleries displaying colourful artwork during the spring and summer of 2012.

Artist Ella Dawn McGeough intended to promote a discussion about transformation and transition with her installation on the heels of the Guelph Transit relocation out of the Square.

The Pop-up Gallery project was developed in partnership with the University of Guelph’s School of Fine Art and Music.