Pop ups of the Future

Back in the spring, as I considered my employment options (read: despaired of ever getting paid to work), Kevin Lee (Executive Director at Scadding Court Community Centre) mentioned they would be offering month-long opportunities during the summer in their expanding shipping container Market 707 (see previous post for more details).  He said I could get a container for $600 a month as long as I provided the business.  I'm not an entrepreneur for a reason (total fear of failure/losing money), but once I started brainstorming, I found I had quite a few ideas. The only limit was what could quickly get set up in a 8'x8' space. After a while they veered into the realm of fantasy, but who knows what the pop-up of the future will look like?  Herewith is my list of potential goods and services some brave person may someday undertake to offer:


Unique goods

• handmade hats/scarves/jewellery
• toys
• jam / preserves
• caricatures
• baby clothes
• personalized Ts 
• woodburning 
• rent-a-swag (see NBC's Parks & Recreation)
• button making
• bespoke socks
• moonshine
• personalized bobbleheads

Personal services

• nail salon
• tattoo parlour
• massage parlour
• hair salon
• hair beading
• tanning booth
• makeovers
• pet grooming

Professional Services

• knife sharpening
• watch/jewellery repair
• translation
• filling out forms for the illiterate/lazy
• sewing repairs
• bedazzling
• making you tube videos for people without computers
• animation
• framing art
• fortune telling
• childcare
• psychiatry 
• taking confession
• cell phone sales/repair
• calligraphy
• apple peeling (autumn only)
• ink cartridge refills
• ukulele lessons
• travel agent
• silver cleaning
• social media ghost writing

Entertainment services

• karaoke
• children's birthday parties
• photo booth
• photos with Santa (seasonal)
• inception

Mega Nuit Blanche 2013

Here are a few images from last month's Nuit Blanche all-night art expo around downtown Toronto.  This year's event was well organized in the sense much of the art was easily find-able (you spent less time looking for stuff that turned out not to be worth it) and in groupings that made it easier to see a bunch of stuff at once without too much walking around.  I concentrated on Trinity Square, Nathan Phillips Square, and along University Ave.  I was a bit sad as the rest of my family and friends I usually go with were unavailable and couldn't share with me, but I was also happy to be free to go at my own pace and not hear any whining about sore feet.  Except my own.

In retrospect, it seems the unofficial theme of the evening was mega, as in a thousand of everything.  Not only were many of the installations huge, they also comprised many repeating parts. In the notes to the Ai Wei Wei exhibition at the AGO, Wei suggests that installations such as Forever Bicycles are a metaphor for the individual among the many, such as  the citizens of China. How do you see it?

Enjoy!

(BTW go to /http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/ for the official names...)

1001 pairs of socks

bicycle clocks

chairs reflected on the floor of St Paul's

chairs and reflection

plastic bags on the ceiling

giant hammock over Bay St.

Ai Wei Wei's 3000 Forever bicycles

head on view of bicycles

toy parade in City hall

angry Smurfs

outraged gnomes

self-propelled music automaton

origami crowns waiting to be picked

origami crowns in actino

let's go to the Ex

1000 tubes of light

tube detail

the elephant in the van

Public Art: Mysterious beggar sculpture captures attention in Kensington Market

Here's a second writing sample based on a new appearance in my neighbourhood...

Public Art: Mysterious beggar sculpture captures attention in Kensington Market

 

This sculpture appeared recently in front of St Stephen in the Fields Church on College St at Bellevue, at the north end of Kensington Market. The sculptor, Tim Schmaltz, has given the anonymous figure stigmata on its palms to suggest that this is Christ at his most humble, asking the onlooker to serve Him by caring for the destitute. Even for the non-Christian, its presence creates a powerful experience for those who pass it.   It is just as easy to walk past a real person, as so many Torontonians do every day.  And yet, even as pedestrians can pass the inanimate beggar with a clear conscience, it calls to mind all the living ones encountered on the street and silently demands whether it’s really okay to pass them too.  Schmaltz calls it a “visual representation of charity” and designed it to make passersby take a second look.

“Whatsoever You Do” (the name refers to Bible passage Matthew 25:40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”) was inspired by a trip Schmaltz took to Mexico, where many of the indigent sat downcast with palm outstretched.   The hooded and hidden face was inspired by Flemish Gothic sculptor Claus Sluter.  This fiberglass cast is on loan to Stephen’s; smaller versions of the sculpture are available on order from the artist.  

Claus Sluter, Tomb of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1390-1406)
(Archeological Museum, Dijon)

http://www.saintstephens.ca/

http://www.sculpturebytps.com/large-bronze-statues-and-sculptures/religious-statues/statues-of-jesus/large-religious-statues-whatsoever-you-do/

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/sculpture/claus-sluter.htm

Readymade Architecture: Market 707 containers bring life to a dead corner

Here's a little something I put together as a writing sample for a Toronto blog... 

Executive Director Kevin Lee of Scadding Court Community Centre (SCCC) was looking for a way to revitalize a fairly dead section of Dundas St east of Bathurst, running along the edge of the centre.  He came across the idea of using old shipping containers as instant storefronts on a field trip to Ghana and the seeds of Market 707 were planted. The first ones were installed in 2010 and featured a handful of food vendors and retail.  As summers went by the concept started to snowball and some favorite vendors – including cheap and cheerful bike repair and Korean Bubble Tea - established themselves, while others came and went.   

Despite initial concern that the containers were drab and downmarket, they struck a chord with young entrepreneurs looking for cheap rent and a way around the typical Toronto red tape.   In the summer of 2013, SCCC offered one-month non-food pop-ups for anyone who wanted to give their idea a go: in came clothing, crafts, catering and electronics, as well as longer term vendors of cupcakes, Filipino shaved ice, and crepes.

Programmers at SCCC started creating events around the market to build buzz, including Friday night concerts and seasonal festivals.  The culmination was a crowd-sourced and funded patio design contest. The winning design team, LGA Architectural Partners, had their Ikea-inspired recycled shipping pallet furniture installed October 2013, on time and under budget, using eager community volunteers.  The resulting space is now an inviting destination Lee hopes will attract visitors from outside the immediate vicinity; the design also went on to win the Special Jury Prize at the 2013 Toronto Urban Design Awards. Lee is now setting his sights on bringing containers to a moribund corner of North York to see if they can work their magic there.

http://www.scaddingcourt.org/market_707

https://projexity.com/projects/view/Market-707%E2s-New-Public-Patio/2#/main/updates