Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Toronto, March 19, 2012- Art duo Thomas+Guinevere (Thom Sokoloski + Jenny-Anne McCowan) host an informal Sneak Peek into Participating in The Encampment on Sunday March 25 at Historic Fort York in the Blue Barracks from 1pm-3pm. The Encampment is a luminous large-scale public participatory art installation co-commissioned by the Luminato Festival and the City of Toronto to mark the Bicentennial of the War of 1812.
The Encampment is a unique form of artistic practice where the metaphor of archeology turns an historic site into a temporal sculpture on a grand-scale. The 2012 version of The Encampment will focus on the civilian history of The War of 1812 and premiere as part of the Luminato Festival and the City of Toronto War of 1812 Commemorations June 8-24, 2012.
Public interested in participating are invited to get a sneak peek into the creative process behind The Encampment. Sokoloski and McCowan will detail the creative process and field questions about the project. This is a great opportunity for the public and potential Creative Collaborators to get a sneak peek into the process and what it will be like to be a participant in this massive expression of art and history.
The Encampment is created over a two-month creation process with one workshop per week for 7 weeks in which the artists work with selected Creative Collaborators prior to the artwork's opening in June.
Conceived as a 'temporal village,' the installation is comprised of 200 A-frame tents pitched on the grounds of Fort York that will transform into a glowing sculptural grid. Each tent contains an installation by one of 200 Creative Collaborators, and creates a visual representation of an aspect of the war's civilian history, gleaned from research into real-life stories of family, love, loss, survival, patriotism, collaboration and betrayal. The scale of Sokoloski and McCowan's work has been compared to that of Christo and Jean-Claude whose Gates populated NYC Central Park in 2005.
In 2006, Thom Sokoloski and Jenny McCowan built their partnership aimed at developing site-specific public participatory art installations in a studio partnership, Thomas+Guinevere. Last year they completed their first stage of Ghost Net in a residency in the Aboriginal community of Mapoon on the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland, Australia and this coming August, they will be at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City undertaking a development workshop of The Scarecrows.
The Encampment - Sneak Peek
Sunday March 25, 2012 from 1-3pm
Get a Sneak Peek into the creation process and see if you want to become a Creative Collaborator!
Historic Fort York - Blue Barracks, 100 Garrison Rd, Toronto
The Encampment: A commission by Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity and City of Toronto, for the War of 1812 Commemoration
A Thomas+Guinevere Creation (Thom Sokoloski & Jenny McCowan)
Conceived by Thom Sokoloski & Produced by Sherrie Johnson Productions
Detailed Information: www.thomasandguinevere.com
2012-03-19
Toronto: Sneak peek into participating in “The Encampment” Sunday, March 25