Myth, metadata, and community: Creating public art for Capilano Library
Untitled (Capilano Schema) by Sergio Serrano and Alexander Stewart. Photo by provided by the artists.
“Libraries are a radical concept,” say Edmonton artists Sergio Serrano and Alexander Stewart. Caught during the final stages of fabrication for their artwork for Capilano Library, the duo dove into a spirited discussion of their project, Untitled (Capilano Schema), which connects people, data, technology, and visual art to tell a nuanced story of the Capilano community. The piece is being installed over the coming weeks, suspending abstract objects sourced from the communities surrounding the library, in the facility’s community room and common area.
“This idea of libraries as radical comes from the current global conversation about access to information and democratized tools,” says Alexander Stewart. “Libraries are also going through a technological shift, becoming maker spaces. So, anyone can go in and access any type of information or tool.”
Capilano community members were invited to bring valued objects to workshops facilitated by the artists who collected data about each item. In keeping with the maker space concept, the artists then worked with participants to create 3D scans of their object using readily available technology.
In the end, Serrano & Stewart scanned about 200 objects or pieces of data. That number shrank to +/- 14 as they worked to determine which pieces would be most representative of themes, and which would become part of the final artwork. To map connections and stories, the artists organized the words of the community into spreadsheets, then fed them through a Markov machine learning system, which presented the data back in a new form. The artists then used that data to create an image map connecting the objects through commonalities of theme, materiality, sentiment, and story.
“There’s the commonality of people going to Disneyland or even the Bahamas and bringing home a souvenir,” explains Stewart. “That became representative of a time and place, a set of values linked with connection to family as well as geography.”
“We also tried to balance the different ways people represent sentiment,” continues Serrano. “You have mass-produced objects that are deeply sentimental to the owner alongside unique objects that were knitted by hand or made by a child in an art class. We found exciting connections and contrasts in the data we pulled out to resolve the final set of objects.”
Working representationally meant that the artists weren't concerned with creating minutely accurate models of the objects.
Serrano and Stewart with the model of a community member’s cowboy hat. Photo by EAC.
“The cowboy hat is interesting because it represents a specific object story from the library itself,” continues Stewart. “Essentially the Library became a person with a story. There’s a patron who is there every day and is quite a tall man who always wears a cowboy hat, so you can see him as he walks through the stacks with this hat that bobs over the books. One of the librarians was talking about the project and told him he had to participate. He said he didn’t know what to bring so they said, ‘You should just scan your hat!’ The object is iconic, but also very specific.”
The artwork’s themes and meaning are not necessarily dependent upon the physical objects say Serrano and Stewart, because the artwork’s story lies within the initial community-based concept and the process that generated the final form.