brief
-
Competition to bring temporary public art installations to The Beaches, celebrating Toronto's winter waterfront landscape.
-
Existing lifeguard structures are to be used as the armature for temporary installations.
Type_Competition
Host_WinterStations Inc.
Year_2016
Beach Ball
During the harsh Canadian winters, the lake-front beaches of Toronto are awry with a mixture of sand, snow and ice. This project aims to re-imagine how we might acknowledge a landscape’s surface in an environment that is continuously in flux.
Characterized in a playful persona, the installation Tim exists as a red orb that roams independantly across the beach-front. Its movements are directly dependent on the ambient winds and snow coverage that sweep over the beach. As Tim meanders about, it pulls up the sand and snow beneath it leaving behind ephemeral traces of space, time and the environment around it.
The bold graphic appearance of the station evokes a sense of curiosity and wonder by passersby. Citizens are encouraged to push and direct Tim around the beach front, drawing out their own experiences with the installation.
Tim is constructed internally by a spherical waffle plywood pattern, and sheathed in painted plywood. The existing lifeguard stand is wrapped by a fabricated steel hoop and mounted into the sand below which acts as a stable hook that the installation is leashed onto constraining outward movements within a specified range.
