SG: Bryne and I were a bit frustrated at the time as we were working for the main Art magazine in Canada at the time, but we felt we hardly ever talked about the art and artists that interested us because the management wasn’t interested in our perspectives. Sadly, none of these temporary arrangements were photographed, such a shame, as some were hilarious. No other staff member was invited to participate (it really was our playful secret), but some of management did complain a couple of times that staff were not picking up after themselves.

Finding and Making  

I actually find this question really challenging as I never thought of the two as separate since they both are so integral to each other. I think artists have ‘input’ and ‘output’ time and while input can dramatically differ from each artist, the input will ultimately inform their output.  I have spent so much time looking to find something, that it has become second nature to me to look and document my findings (to a point where both my husband and son humour me when I go off on a tangent to look at something.)

Looking has helped inform not only my thinking of the city, and how we navigate through it but has also been an inspiration for my own practice in the studio and in the public realm. I really appreciate that my findings are spontaneous happenstances that are informal, messy, random, disorderly, and tentative. And in many ways they are completely opposite to my artwork, but I couldn’t create the work I make without being informed by what I see.

My practice is rooted in drawing, and drawing has influenced how I see my environment. For me drawing is immediate but requires a slow viewing to understand the complexity of mark making and line. I use the same precision that I employ in making my artwork as I do when I am  looking and I hope that my drawings compel people to slow down and look.
 

AT: What I find very interesting about this approach to sculpture, the one embodied in the SAD project, is that the heroic gesture of the maker is counterbalanced with the less heroic, and perhaps more accessible gesture, of the finder. I say perhaps because finding also requires a particular disposition, a particular awareness. Breton called it “floating attention” (attention flottante). For Breton, this state of mind, where you are not actually seeking but open and receptive, is necessary in order to become sensitized to the encounter.
 

SG: I love your observation of the heroic and less heroic. Because these findings for much of the population are probably deemed insignificant; however, once the finder documents their finding, then it becomes elevated and becomes significant and of interest to the viewer. I have been heavily influenced by the Situationists International and their dérive and détournement are strategies that have informed my practice but also directed how I explore the urban environment. I cannot say for sure, but it seems to me that Guy Debord embodied Breton’s idea of “floating attention” in his own exploration of the city and defining the strategies used by the SI.

AT: I believe so, the practice of walking without engaging in practical commercial activities, that was practiced by the Situationists as a contestatary reaction to the Society of Spectacle, had its poetic precedent in the explorations of the “magical everyday” carried out by the Surrealists. The term that Breton employed was “the magical circumstantial”, which referred to the moment of encountering oneself in the territory. Breton performed oneiric walks in Paris where he opened himself to the possibility of having chance encounters that would transform himself, what would reveal himself on the outside.

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SG: Guy Debord coined the term psychogeography as a way of defining the effect of geography on one’s self. And believed that the dérive was the tactic to allow those chance encounters and experiences.

AT: Parallel to drawing, walking seems to be an important part of your practice. Do you prepare yourself in a certain way when you go out for your walks? Or, to put it another way, do you find that the walks bring your mind to a particular awareness?
 

SG: Walking is a very important part of my practice. I try not to prepare myself at all and have no plan so that I can use the strategy of the dérive. Because these walks are not planned, it allows me the freedom to observe my surroundings or environment. Which is interesting in itself as I don’t really pay attention to streets or navigating in the traditional sense. I follow what captures my interest and sometimes have gotten somewhat lost. My partner has said to me numerous times, “It amazes me that someone who is so interested in the city, maps and the urban landscape, that you have no sense of direction.” His observation is partially true, because I am not paying attention to the physical orientation of the landscape, I am looking at much more interesting things instead of navigating.

AT: It is very interesting that you are bringing the notion of orientation, and the fact that you orient yourself differently. I totally sympathize with this. I get lost very easily, and in addition, I find maps difficult to use because I don't immediately see the correlation between what is drawn on the map with what I am seeing, or encountering, in the territory. I wonder if we can expand a bit on the idea of the dérive and orientation. Is it too much of a stretch to compare the temporal arrangements that you find on the street, the found sculptures, with a particular way of attuning yourself with the urban environment? Is there any particular quality in those ephemeral arrangements that you feel oriented towards?

SG: I’m not sure I see the found sculptures as a way of attuning myself with the urban environment, instead I see them more as a connection with the urban landscape. Many of these sculptures are part of the discarded, overlooked or marginalised aspects of the urban environment. It is through my ‘drift’ that these sculptures are revealed because I find them interesting.

I’m reminded of the S.I’s “Naked City” psychogeography map of Paris, where only the interesting areas of Paris were cut out and connected by arrows. The map suggested certain navigational directions and sequence but it was still pretty ambiguous. I might be generalizing in stating that most SADs are found in the grittier parts of the built environment instead of areas of newer developments in the city, as these areas don’t yet have the patina of urban life. I am drawn to areas that are visually diverse in forms, structures, textures and provide a certain ambience but with that said, I am also drawn to seeing something ‘new’ or different in my regular commutes as well.

The Map and its Referent