Animated gif of the takedown of Polytopia from the upArt 2011 installation.It took months to make, a week to assemble, 4 hours to hoist up, 2 hours to nail in place, and only 1 hour to take down. It was kind of sad!
This project has a lot of life of its own, in a way, and ripping out the staples felt like disecting some creature. I kept whispering to it that it shouldn’t worry, and that I hoped it didn’t hurt too much. A surprisingly strong and strange reaction to the task at hand, and no doubt the thick layer of fatigue that filtered my reality at that point in the exhibition had lots to do with it.
Marc Ngui takes down the Polytopia component of The Reef installation. There was a whole lot of ladder action with this project…Polytopia is an ongoing textile art project and it formed the background component for the Reef installation that happened 27 – 30 October 2001 as part of the Gladstone Hotel’s upART art fair in Toronto, Canada.
The exhibit was wonderfully photographable, and as a result we have hundreds of images to edit of the installation and exhibition, and those are coming, too.