Flipping Properties: Jimenez Lai and Bureau Spectacular
Alleyway installation July 11-September 7, 2014
Art Metropole window June 4-July 12, 2014
THE ORIGIN OF REAR VIEW (PROJECTS)
In 2012 I had just completed a one year curatorial residency at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and was eager to begin a new project. Sitting in my kitchen I looked out the back door and saw the space behind my home. My need for a platform was answered by using what was available. Rear View (Projects) was created and Flipping Properties was the result.
Flipping Properties was commissioned by Rear View (Projects) (formerly a collective with architect Jennifer Davis) for a laneway in Toronto’s Little Portugal neighbourhood. The project is a continuation of an ongoing study of super-furnitures by Jimenez Lai, an architect, and the team of Bureau Spectacular. The installation takes the familiar house icon, the pentagon, as its formal starting point. Lai denatures this symbol of domesticity, converting it into super-furniture which is ‘too big to be furniture and too small to be architecture.’ This intervention in Toronto’s urban fabric provokes us to reconsider the potential uses for overlooked spaces in the city and question typical modes of interaction between art, place and audiences.
During the opening event on July 11, 2014, pieces of the installation were flipped and moved into place within the laneway, creating a place for neighbours to gather and imagine an architecture that can reorient infinitely. CBC host, Britt Wray joined Jimenez Lai in a discussion on ‘rotation’ from the varied perspectives of architecture and science.
Flipping Properties was supported by the Ontario Arts Council
Art Metropole window installation June 4-July 12, 2014
