0:11

education here at the gallery but before

0:13

that I’m visual artist

0:16

a member of th and B which is collective

0:18

of for artists primarily including items

0:22

erratic and missing your assignment

0:27

Frank and Dave Hines

0:28

so this work behind us it’s called

0:30

declaration it continues and possibly

0:35

finishes our obsession with the Great

0:37

Lakes as a symbol and using in our work

0:41

for decades and also the notion of

0:47

things like public signage public

0:49

billboards ways that we communicate

0:50

information ways that we take geography

0:54

and land at a sense of place and flatten

0:57

it and turn it into symbols and

1:00

signifiers and and that so we have a

1:04

billboard made out of scrap with an

1:07

iteration of the Great Lakes and we’re

1:10

gonna use it as a template for a number

1:12

of work actions that will take place

1:15

during the run of the exhibition where

1:16

we’ll be we pasting other visions of the

1:20

Great Lakes on top of a on top of this

1:23

billboard so the lakes will keep on

1:24

changing and evolving as time goes by so

1:28

a lot of our works take the premise of

1:30

the actual object and we just continue

1:32

to work through them and kind of develop

1:34

them and let them kind of evolve over

1:36

time so the Great Lakes imagery has been

1:39

reused in several iterations as tour set

1:42

up and it’s kind of a recurring motif

1:47

the actual name th and B is trying to

1:49

Hampton Buffalo it’s a defunct railroad

1:51

it has its own symbol as well and that’s

1:54

become a motif that we use in the works

1:55

and these are kind of things that are

1:57

regional signifiers that are relatable

1:59

to anyone living in the Greater Hamilton

2:02

Toronto area they’re recognizable

2:04

they’re also historic but they’re not

2:08

fixed they’re things that we could alter

2:10

that we can do things to that have one

2:12

meeting that could be flipped into

2:14

another meeting that can be then flipped

2:15

into another material that can be cut

2:17

out in one direction and repay stood in

2:20

another so it’s kind of an ongoing

2:21

process this piece comes out of a piece

2:24

we’ve also done that’s up at the

2:25

McMaster Museum of Art right now called

2:26

Basin which is actually a 3-2

2:28

internal sculpture a billboard of Steel

2:31

of the Great Lakes so basin and

2:33

declaration kind of are interesting kind

2:36

of bookends that allow us to deal with

2:38

this kind of localized in imagery but in

2:41

a much kind of broader material way so

2:45

declaration

2:46

unlike the billboard is at once sort of

2:50

has the rounded corners of a billboard

2:52

but if you look at the patchwork it’s

2:53

also it’s also a kind of a patchwork

2:56

cartography

2:57

it’s a strange form of artistic map

3:00

making so on one level we’re kind of

3:02

marking a territory we’re familiar with

3:04

but we’re also bringing up questions

3:05

about advertising industry the active

3:11

labor recycling adaptive reuse the reuse

3:15

of materials we’re really committed to

3:17

this idea and this is something that our

3:21

members Dave and Simon Dave in

3:23

particular are keen on is the idea of

3:26

kind of using and reusing and adapting

3:28

materials into from one piece into

3:30

another piece into another piece of work

3:32

so that there’s a constant kind of a

3:35

churn I suppose between our projects

3:39

that sort of one leads to another leads

3:41

to another and as tour set we’ve been

3:43

doing this for about the better part of

3:45

the last decade and I think the the

3:47

lakes have been this one image that’s

3:49

kind of become a recurring motif record

3:52

but we’ve kind of become associated with

3:54

you notice all the bits of used wood

3:58

reclaimed wood old plywood plywood

4:00

that’s been weathered outside we have

4:02

all these arguments about like our

4:03

materials and they’re probably the most

4:07

vicious arguments that we have as a

4:09

collective because there’s a

4:10

urge to use clean new materials that’s

4:14

always balanced by this no it has to be

4:15

stuff we find and it has to be stuff

4:17

that’s beaten up and and we’re not

4:19

allowed to buy anything new and a lot of

4:21

a lot of what informs that is this idea

4:24

of these surfaces having in endured

4:27

layers of work and there’s a patina

4:30

there’s yeah there’s a patina of

4:32

experience and when we think about the

4:34

Great Lakes

4:35

gets really exciting for us to think

4:37

about it as this yes when you see the

4:40

image of the Great Lakes it’s

4:41

immediately recognizable and it’s it’s

4:44

kind of static in its way and it’s

4:45

looked pretty much the same way for for

4:49

thousands of years and yet it’s been

4:51

this zone of layer after layer of layer

4:54

of human activity and it kind of blows

4:58

our mind when we think about trying to

5:00

create a portrait of that because

5:02

there’s no way to get to the bottom of

5:03

it

5:04

it’s constantly changing it’s constantly

5:06

evolving it’s constantly being intruded

5:08

upon it’s being poisoned it’s being

5:11

remediated and cleaned it’s and so to

5:15

try and create a representation of that

5:18

will always fail but what we like is is

5:22

really trying to attack that notion of a

5:24

surface that gets worked upon and worked

5:26

upon that’s why even though as much as

5:28

we love this object we’re also committed

5:31

to add more layers to it and let it

5:34

evolve let it stay ever-changing and

5:36

kind of in a way that makes it more

5:41

important that this is just a surface

5:44

for work and less about like here’s this

5:46

object that we’ve made it’s more about

5:48

this is this is ever-changing it will

5:50

change it will erode decay like anything

5:53

and it’s complicated it sort of reflects

5:56

the dialogues that we have as a

5:57

collective of four people were

5:59

constantly kind of negotiating for

6:01

complicated

6:02

we’re always negotiating any kind of

6:04

action we do and so there’s an argument

6:06

there’s a counter argument there’s one

6:08

move there’s a counter move the piece

6:10

also nicely displays our process there’s

6:12

panels in here if you look you’ll see

6:14

like written residue of other projects

6:17

we’ve worked on you know and furthermore

6:20

the idea of starting with the idea of

6:22

building an indoor billboard as it came

6:24

together as a patchwork one can imagine

6:26

that this is all wood that we actually

6:28

pulled out of the shores of Lake Ontario

6:30

or Hamilton Harbor and have kind of made

6:33

in a weird way a kind of a life raft out

6:35

of and I like the life raft there’s a

6:37

metaphor because it’s something that’s

6:39

generally made out of reclaimed

6:40

materials out of found materials it

6:43

implies a work

6:45

a work that has a sense of purpose and

6:47

then in terms of the notion of a life

6:48

raft this idea of remediation you know

6:52

here’s this landscape here’s this area

6:54

particularly in a place like Hamilton

6:55

which we’ve kind of treated like a

6:57

garbage dump for the better part of a

6:59

century how could we take this stuff the

7:03

detritus that sort of left behind and

7:05

turn it on its head and maybe try to

7:07

make something more positive about that

7:09

and hopefully also make it kind of a

7:10

statement about the notion of adaptive

7:12

reuse yeah and turning it on its head

7:14

kinda as a nice segue to the fact that

7:17

we’ve put the lakes on its side right we

7:20

the lakes are recognizable but they tend

7:23

to only be recognizable when viewed it’s

7:25

a horizontal or the south pop the bottom

7:27

the minute you twist it 90 degrees yeah

7:30

I can recognize it immediately so you’re

7:33

forced to look at it in a different way

7:35

but again it’s an idea that really

7:37

appeals to us and our relationship with

7:41

this site and with these lakes is always

7:44

just trying to reframe how we how we

7:47

think about it how we see it the

7:50

declaration is up now

7:52

as of January 20th and will stay up

7:56

until May 13th I believe and there’s

7:58

going to be scheduled interactions

8:00

throughout those three months where

8:04

we’re here working on it changing the

8:07

surface the first of those actions is

8:08

February 11th which is our public

8:10

opening for all the exhibition sport in

8:12

ski and the water show and reservoir and

8:14

declaration

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