You are here.

1995 – 2005

 

Designed for the foyer of a large urban planning and design firm, the You are here. tea-filled map acts as a brew for urban utopia. The routered, aromatic lines map out the tenuous beginnings of a merging of various forces – the urban, the elemental, the spiritual. The image is configured from the grafting of the archaic, a Chinese Shih divination plate, onto the present, a map detailing the Cartesian grid of the ‘New World’ city of Toronto. An investigation into the future contains an expression of longing and a search for hope. Developing a numerological system for the art of placement is akin to developing a mathematical system for the negotiation of space – both simultaneously engage the rational and mystical to transform the nebulous into concrete reality. Community spirit, and consequently, the survival of the city, resides in the capacity to hope and to divine. A city is held together not only by physical structures, but by structures of belief.

 

 


 


 

media: various ground tea leaves (peppermint, chamomile, rosehip, hibiscus, jasmine, orange pekoe, red raspberry), paint, plaster
dimensions: 8’ W x 8’ H x 2’ D
photos: Peter MacCallum, Millie Chen

site: Urban Strategies Inc., Toronto

 

Commissioned by Berridge Lewinberg Greenberg Ltd. through the Toronto Arts Foundation Protégé Award.