WESTERN FRONT

Description:

STSTS was a site-specific public installation on the façade on Western Front, and accompanying artist book by Maggie Groat. The project was informed by traditional and alternative research methodologies including conversations with people and plants, walks, tarot readings, and archival materials to explore the possible futures and shifting histories of the site of Western Front—a building that rests upon the embankment of a now underground creek. Previously known as Brewery Creek, this waterway flowed through Mount Pleasant, past Western Front, and along Scotia Street before it was buried due to urbanization.

To launch the installation, Groat led a walk and discussion that began at the starting point of Brewery Creek on the northwest corner of East 31st Avenue and Prince Edward Street and followed its path. The hour-long walk concluded at Western Front where Groat read from the STSTS publication.

On the left side of Western Front’s exterior glows a one-metre-tall triangle approximately five metres above the ground. The top of the building is cut off by the frame. The frontal facade is drenched in winter sunlight and foliage shadow, snow stacks by the sidewalk glow, and the triangle illuminates in the shadow.

Across the diagonal street corner, Western Front’s facade glows in winter sunlight, with only a tree shadow in its centre. The blue sky’s vibrance resembles the snow stacks’ glow by the sidewalk. A yellow, one-metre-tall, glowing triangle hangs from the shadowed left side of the facade, approximately five metres from the ground.

On a sunlit, clear winter’s day, Western Front’s seafoam building reflects the sunlight from its front facade. Its left side drenched in shadow, on the right side hangs a one metre tall triangle, approximately five metres from the ground.

On the left facade of Western Front hangs a one-metre-tall, glowing yellow triangle. The cold seafoam green of the building’s vinyl siding juxtaposes with the warmer pale yellow of the triangle.

Captions:

Maggie Groat, STSTS (2018), installation view, Jun 9, 2018.
Maggie Groat, STSTS (2018), installation view, Jun 9, 2018.
Maggie Groat, STSTS (2018), installation view, Jun 9, 2018.
Maggie Groat, STSTS (2018), installation view, Jun 9, 2018.

Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.