Late one evening back in 1989, I stumbled upon a strange assemblage of wooden planks crisscrossing the façade
of a small lot situated between two vacant historic buildings on one of the main streets of my hometown of
Toronto. Within the shadows of the city’s glow, it appeared as an organic growth of raw lumber that spanned
across the lot and intertwined with the neighbouring buildings. I initially thought this was a complex scaffolding
structure for a construction site that was in a state of being assembled or disassembled. Stepping into the site
I realized the structure was not part of a construction site, but was the finished construction itself. What I had
discovered was a temporary installation by Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata. Kawamata’s works, often referred
to as “displacements”, are chaotic improvisational architectural growths of found lumber, and construction
debris. They are purposeful interventions on the streetscape that disrupt the rhythm of the urban landscape.
Normally in a city we are always trying to reduce intrusive noise. My construction is like that noise. ...I create something that is in a different order. Because the city is based on a very tight structure,
the artist must always make something to resist it.1
This experience with Kawamata’s Toronto Project, planted a seed in my mind and forever altered the way I
interact with the urban landscape; particularly how I view interventions such as scaffolding assemblages found
at construction and renovation sites. These are no longer blights on the landscape, or obstructing structures
secondary to the buildings they are affixed to. These are interesting architectural pieces in themselves, who’s
appearance offers a disruption of the monotony of the everyday streetscape. Like a butterfly’s woven chrysalis,
these structures protect and hide a transformation taking place.
In Europe, a greater dichotomy is formed between scaffolding and the often ornate edifices they clad
themselves to. Scaffolding, a crude somewhat haphazard architectural assemblage of rugged materials (of steel
tubing, planks and netting), appear as an almost insect growth against the purposeful historic stone and brick
buildings undergoing renovation. Patterns or images are sometimes printed upon the tarps draped along the
scaffolding, an attempt at camouflaging or beautifying the structure. This merely succeeds in adding another
layer of texture to the structure and elicits a “who are they trying to fool?” type response from passersby.
These structures become most interesting once workers have left and the sun has set. In the darkened
environment they become quiet and still; frozen until the daylight brings the worker’s return. Abandoned, the
structure becomes suspended in time, leaving few clues to its temporal existence. Is the work ongoing? Has
the site been abandoned for weeks? Is it permanent? How much longer will it be there? Impossible to tell.
During these quiet hours, the scaffolding transforms from utilitarian to ornamental. Colour casts and shadows
from the surrounding city’s illumination flatten and blend the structure with the host building. The draped
tarps and netting reflect the incidental light while revealing shadows and silhouettes of it’s underlying skeletal
structure. The chrysalis is alien, but somehow right.
Documenting my nocturnal encounters with these assemblages, by working with a large format camera, is the
first phase of this project. Visually archiving their temporary existence within the context of its surroundings.
For the second phase I plan on detaching the scaffolding from the architecture so it can become it’s own
entity that can be explored. The photographs will serve as a basis for architectural model like sculptures of
the scaffolding structures, isolated from it’s surroundings. The singular perspective view within the photograph
will serve as a starting point, then I will become architect to fill in, close, or leave open, what is not seen in the
photos. The night environment will remain for these new realizations, as they will be intended for exhibition
in a darkened space. Self-contained lighting systems within and surrounding the sculpture will emulate the
lighting conditions captured in the photos. The result will detach the utilitarian context of the scaffolding
structure and place it closer to the imaginary realm inspired by my early encounter with Kawamata’s work.
Returning to Kawamata’s Toronto Project site a few weeks later, and the structure was gone. The installation
had disappeared as silently as it appeared, returning the street back to its uninterrupted state. Upon seeing
the vacant lot again, I thought that the street lacked something without the installation, and that it perhaps
it should have been permanent. Looking back though, I believe the installation was better left to my memory
than as a permanent fixture. It’s temporary existence a part of the endless cycle of construction and demolition
within the city.
1 Tadashi Kawamata, “Kawamata: An Interview,” Interview by Linda Genereux, Kawamata: Toronto Project 1989
(Toronto: Mercer Union: a centre for contemporary visual art, 1989), p31
-------------------