Expanding Cities Photo And Video Installation In Toronto’s Subway Stations
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
PATTISON Onestop and Art for Commuters are presenting Contacting Toronto: Expanding Cities, featuring noted Mexican artist, Alejandro Cartagena’s images.
Cartagena’s ‘Carpoolers’ in Warden Station
Cartagena’s works are being shown on 55 static advertising posters, converting Toronto’s Warden subway station into a distinctive exhibition space.
In addition, they are being shown on the Toronto Transit Commission’s digital platform screens. And threading through the city’s subway system is a series of videos by Kingston, Ontario art duo, Julia Krolik and Owen Fernley, capturing the attention of more than a million daily commuters throughout the month of May.
An official public installation of Scotiabank CONTACT, Toronto’s annual photography festival, the 9th annual Contacting Toronto addresses issues of transportation, suburban development and sustainability. Contacting Toronto: Expanding Cities is curated by Sharon Switzer, national arts programmer and curator, PATTISON Onestop.
Cartagena’s series Carpoolers (2011–2012) adopts a bird’s eye view of construction workers and landscapers gathered together in the beds of pickup trucks. Traveling to the wealthy suburban communities outside of Monterrey, Mexico, that they build and maintain, the men lounge together, nestled among the tools and detritus of their professions. His Suburbia Mexicana (2006–2010) series focuses on the rise of poorer suburbs. Tiny cookie-cutter homes spread across the horizon, while families pose in front of these simple dwellings, proud of their new neighbourhoods.
Intersection (2015) is the series of videos by Krolik and Fernley, shown non-stop on five TTC LCD screens throughout Warden Station and every five minutes at 62 other stations across the city. Aerial views of suburban homes, roads, and parking lots are revealed with map-like precision, through the use of government orthophotos. The artists created a custom image processor to randomly sample images from a suburban region north of the Greater Toronto Area. Appearing as a triptych of changing images, this expanse transforms continuously as unnamed communities replace one another, details blurring into a seemingly never-ending suburban landscape.
“The artwork in Expanding Cities asks viewers to think critically about suburban expansion and sustainability,” says Switzer. “Warden station, at the eastern edge of Toronto’s subway system, may seem like an unlikely place to mount an ambitious art installation, but I believe the relatively remote location will enhance viewers’ appreciation of work.”
Cartagena will also speak at an event in Toronto as well as teach a two-day workshop focused on photo book history, edit and sequencing methods during the exhibition period.
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