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RESIDENT TECHNICIAN’S NOTES In 2001, I moved into an apartment in Montreal where trees began to grow from seeds blown in from the streets onto my balcony. Amazed at how they asserted themselves inside a room in my apartment, I decided to share the exciting slowness of the seedlings by creating an International Artist Residency called A Week in the Woods – Dwelling for Intervals. The room became a parenthesis in which the trees were audience, friend, complicit time-waster and excuse. When I first circulated the idea that I was hosting artist residencies with some seedlings, I was met with raised-eyebrows and patronizing smirks but after two years the project was so popular I wasn't able to facilitate all the requests to participate. |
RESIDENT TECHNICIAN’S MANDATE
A Week in the Woods was designed as an intensive residency, in a room of young seedlings, in a domestic setting, in an urban centre. A Week in the Woods is a threefold project: a mental work space, a viewing room, and the roots of a series of publications with Intrepid Tourist Press. As a mental work space, the program was seen as a sort of tree-house where one gets away from the ‘parents’ of life. Local Montrealers who need to get away in order to concentrate on finishing or sparking a new project, might seek a 4-48 hour type immersion. For international artists, they came for several weeks in order to undertake larger projects on or outside the site, this allowed them to spend time in the room of seedlings as a focusing ground or pivot point, or as a work site. A Week in the Woods Residency operated on invitation-only basis. In exchange for time in the woods, we asked that residents complete an official resident’s form and invite them to leave any written, drawn or sound work that they think might add to the future of the project. A poem, short story, cartoon, article, video, or sound recording of the performance created while a resident, was appreciated as long as the format could fit in the small cardboard box which is located under the bed in the room.
LIST OF RESIDENT ARTISTS (in chronological order)
Nancy Ring (4 hours), Yvette Poorter (14 hours), Diane Borsato (5 hours), Stephan Kurr (5 hours), Andy Brown (3 days), Day Milman (4 days), Taien Ng-Chan (2 days), Dana Bath (31 hours), Nancy Ring (20 hours), Anthony Burnham (4 hours), Catherine Kidd (24 hours), Meg Sircom (4.5 hours), JoAnne Balcaen (6 hours), Catherine Kidd (24 hours), Todd Munro (18 hours), Lance Blomgren (36 hours), Christine Brault (7 hours), Samuel Roy-Bois (3 hours), Nikki Forrest (4 hours), Adrienne Spear (4 hours), Tulle Ruth (5.5 hours), Matthew Forbes (4 hours), Billy Mavreas (4 hours), Ana Rewakowicz (6 hours), Philipp Thalmann (32 days), Ana Rewakowicz (4 hours), Anita Lehey (4 hours), Michael Davidge (37 hours), Joni Murphy (24 hours), Vince Tinguely (4 hours).
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SLIDE SHOW (click image to left to activate slide show) This slideshow presents some of the contents of the shoebox-under-the-bed. Things are shown in no particular order and a caption at the bottom tells who left it. |