(in collaboration with Holly Ward)
2023-24
Modified Dog Strollers, Helium Tanks, Xylophone, Bass Drum, Mixing Bowls, Mallets, Wind chimes, Cymbals, Bottles, Water, Wood, T-Shirts, Performers, Posters, Ink, Wireless Headphones, Audio Recording, Newspaper Rack, Newsprint, Steel, Sandbags, Markham City Park Benches
Cart 1: 72” × 61” × 32”
Cart 2: 60” × 61” × 32”
Lost and Found is a public art work involving ephemeral interventions along the Rouge Valley Trail in Unionville, Markham from June–October 2023, translated into an exhibition at the Varley Art Gallery in January–May 2024.
Holly Ward and I built two musical carts, attaching ready-made and improvised instruments to modified dog strollers. We made a call for amateur musicians to play the carts, or to practice on their own musical instruments along the trail, using the project budget to pay them an hourly wage. Over the course of the project, these musicians played for a total of 709 hours. In the exhibition, viewers were able to improvise on the carts, or listen to a field recording of walking along the trail through wireless headphones.
We designed fourteen meme-like T-shirts with a theme of being present and mindful in the out-of-doors. Individuals could borrow these from the Varley Art Gallery to wear while walking along the trail. We approached community groups and offered to make a donation to a charity of their choice in exchange for the group wearing the T-shirts during their activities. A scout and seniors tai-chi group took our offer, activating the shirts for 12 days of activities. In the exhibition the T-shirts hung inert on a steel display, highlighting the absence of animating bodies in the exhibition space.
None of the interventions were publicized officially. The audience was the participants themselves, and the local population who experienced the events obliquely, as an atmosphere to pass through. The exhibition and subsequent publication served as a reveal of these activities as artworks. Notably, we produced a newspaper detailing stories from the musicians about their experiences as participants and created a mural from posters fashioned using the text of the emails sent out to solicit musicians.
The events of this project were designed as open questions about the nature of creative activity in public space, how this is experienced and valued, and how a framing within an exhibition or as an artwork influences this. We continued to pay musicians to practice within the exhibition, and the carts could be played by exhibition visitors.
In 2025, Lost and Found received the ‘Public Art: Sustainability Award’ from the Creative City Network of Canada.
A catalog published by Varley Art Gallery and Markham Public Art is available at Art Metropole.
Holly Ward and I built two musical carts, attaching ready-made and improvised instruments to modified dog strollers. We made a call for amateur musicians to play the carts, or to practice on their own musical instruments along the trail, using the project budget to pay them an hourly wage. Over the course of the project, these musicians played for a total of 709 hours. In the exhibition, viewers were able to improvise on the carts, or listen to a field recording of walking along the trail through wireless headphones.
We designed fourteen meme-like T-shirts with a theme of being present and mindful in the out-of-doors. Individuals could borrow these from the Varley Art Gallery to wear while walking along the trail. We approached community groups and offered to make a donation to a charity of their choice in exchange for the group wearing the T-shirts during their activities. A scout and seniors tai-chi group took our offer, activating the shirts for 12 days of activities. In the exhibition the T-shirts hung inert on a steel display, highlighting the absence of animating bodies in the exhibition space.
None of the interventions were publicized officially. The audience was the participants themselves, and the local population who experienced the events obliquely, as an atmosphere to pass through. The exhibition and subsequent publication served as a reveal of these activities as artworks. Notably, we produced a newspaper detailing stories from the musicians about their experiences as participants and created a mural from posters fashioned using the text of the emails sent out to solicit musicians.
The events of this project were designed as open questions about the nature of creative activity in public space, how this is experienced and valued, and how a framing within an exhibition or as an artwork influences this. We continued to pay musicians to practice within the exhibition, and the carts could be played by exhibition visitors.
In 2025, Lost and Found received the ‘Public Art: Sustainability Award’ from the Creative City Network of Canada.
A catalog published by Varley Art Gallery and Markham Public Art is available at Art Metropole.