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grew up in Ottawa and lived in Toronto for 7 years after university. Last
fall I moved back. Ottawa is a city of green space and manicured parks.
However I have a real affinity for the sparse parkettes in Toronto. I have
spent many lunches and afternoons in them and very much appreciated their
place in a city with limited public space. On a visit in the spring to
Toronto, I took some pictures near the TD Towers that boasted a beautiful
lawn, but was cordoned off. It was a perfect patch of grass for workers
to sit on eat some lunch, relax but these activities were not permitted…in
a large city such as Toronto there is not nearly enough of this sunny-lazing
about in a patch of grass.
In Can You Spare a Moment? a circle of sod will be laid on the paving stones of Matt Cohen Parkette echoing the curiously small mounds of grass found at the major intersection of Bloor St. and Spadina Road. The circle of sod will be fenced off and accompanied by a sign saying, “Please lie down if you can spare a moment?” Karina Bergmans is perhaps best known for the Lost Mitten Project in which she catalogued a multitude of lost or discarded winter handwear. The project investigated the residue of urban dwellers, the clues left by city inhabitants. Can You Spare a Moment? is analogous in that it investigates the activities of pedestrians. The question is, how many will accept the invitation the artist has extended? Bergmans’s work, due to its focus on everyday experience, at first appears purely playful, but under more careful observation it becomes evident that this student of psychology is examining deeper social and personal concerns. As the artist explains, the loss of a favourite mitten must be grieved in a similar manner to more traumatic losses and more profound personal attachments. We experience sadness, anger and perhaps denial. Similarly our choice as to whether to flake out on a public green space points to deeper issues relating to comfort levels in very public spaces. Do we thrive in highly populated spaces? Do we feel the need to shut out their stimuli and are we able to? Bergmans’s work is also defined by an engagement with municipalities. The artist has lived and exhibited in both Ottawa and Toronto and is interested in the differences between the two cities in terms collective urban psychology. Can You Spare a Moment? relates to the frenetic pace of living particular to Toronto. This project stems both from the artist’s belief in the typical pedestrian’s need to take five in the sun in a local a green space and her desire to lavish attention on neglected patches of grass in need of affection. Rather than recovering lost possessions Bergmans’s contribution to Parkette attempts to recover a sense of ownership towards lost spaces. Ottawa’s parks, in contrast to Toronto’s, are rarely neglected. Because Ottawa is the capital the federal government has a mission to maintain the city as an impressive showcase for Canadian and international tourists as well as diplomats. Ottawa’s green spaces are thus large, vast in number and as Bergmans states, well manicured. Ironically, however, they belong not to the locality of Ottawa but to ‘Ottawa’ the seat of the federal government. While inhabitants of the Capital benefit from these beautification efforts they, quite unlike Torontonians, suffer from a lack of a sense of locality. When Torontonians laze about in their small, unkept patches of grass, they do at least recline in a space that belongs to them. |
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