full circle

interactive public artwork, Buffalo, NY, 2016

Commissioned by CEPA Gallery and C.S.1 Curatorial Projects for CEPA's West Side Lots Project

This art installation takes an element commonly found in parks and playgrounds - the swing-set - and by questioning its conventional linear arrangement achieves a transformation that is abstract, spatial, political and interactive.

The project stems from an interest in spaces of play, in the broadest definition of that term, as places that can be used to liberate the individual from the generic and enrich the everyday.

Starting with a familiar construct and transforming it, the installation twists the typical experience of a swing-set to provide opportunities for confrontation and dialogue through the positioning of individuals in relation to the work and each other. No longer partaking in parallel movement as on a typical swing-set, the users of FULL CIRCLE are invited to partake in a playful dialogue.

Questioning the basic relationships between people in space, the project aims for a socially conscious and thereby political engagement. Further, by bringing a piece of playground equipment together with the charged spatial arrangement of political round-tables and corporate boardrooms, the installation takes a playful construct and positions it in the adult-world.

Nestled in a typical West Side lot in Buffalo and taking the elements of a swing-set as a starting point, FULL CIRCLE twists the reference to become an abstracted and engaging interactive installation.

PRESS: Architectural Record / Domus / Architect Magazine / IdN / Canadian Architect / Buffalo Spree / Public / Buffalo Rising