Leisure (Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley)
Photo: Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, avec la permission de/ courtesy of Guy L’Heureux
Panning for Gold / Walking You Through It, 2017
Digital prints on canvas with ink wash, Pan Abode cedar logs, silkscreened nylon vests, typed letter from Cornelia Hahn Oberlander to Polly Hill outlining her project description for the Environment for Creative Play and Learning, typed summary of workshop on Children’s Creative Centre by Polly Hill
Documents: Courtesy Library and Archives Canada
This installation takes as its point of departure the Environment for Creative Play and Learning in the Children’s Creative Centre at Expo 67, an adventure playground designed by the innovative Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. Amongst the glitter and technology-driven view of the future that was characteristic of Expo, this modest plot offered children nearly infinite possibilities for play, with its natural textures, mounds and “loose parts.” The result of detailed on-site and archival research, as well as conversations with Oberlander herself, this installation consists of large hand-tinted digital prints based on archival artifacts and custom-built notched logs that can be manipulated by museum visitors. The multitude of textures, objects and costumes pays tribute to Oberlander’s non-hierarchical definition of “creative power” that challenged conventional notions of children’s play. Leisure attests to Oberlander’s determination and analytical acumen through her correspondence with project director Polly Hill.
Acknowledgments: Milieux – Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology, Concordia University; Pan Abode; Matthew Brooks; Gabrielle Doiron.
About the Artists
Leisure is a conceptual collaborative art practice between Meredith Carruthers (1975) and Susannah Wesley (1976), based in Montréal. Working together under the name “Leisure” since 2004, they engage with cultural historical narratives through research, conversation, published texts, curatorial projects and art production. Panning For Gold/Walking You Through It which they are developing for In Search of Expo 67 is part Leisure’s ongoing project entitled You must do the moving, exploring ideas around mid-century women and creative production – specifically spatialized movement, gesture, and the use of alternative methodological approaches. Leisure has produced exhibitions and special projects in Canada and abroad, and participated in residencies in Banff (Banff Centre for the Arts, AB, 2007); Dawson City (KIAC, Yukon); Haliburton (Ontario); and Vienna (Kunstverein das weisse haus, Austria, 2008). Their recent research on gesture and spatial narrative has included Dualité / Dualité (Artexte, Montreal, 2015) and Conversations With Magic Stones in 2016 at EFA, New York.
Events
EXHIBITION VISITS AND ARTIST TALKS
Visit with Leisure on Thursday, July 27, 2017 at 6pm at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
