Two Trees

During the spring and summer of 2005, myself and a team of five others (Raffi Mahseredjian, David Ediger, Sum Li, Robyn Prisland and Stephanie Hutton), spent an exorbitant amount of time and energy on this double curation project - Two Trees.  While developing part of the land on the mountain, SFU had cut down a few old growths, so decided to offer the wood to local wood artists to make pieces.  Their work would then be presented in two shows, one at the Pendulum Gallery downtown, and another on the Burnaby campus.  It was an obvious PR move on their part, but the only curating opportunity we, as students, had ever come across - so we jumped at the opportunity. 

The Pendulum Gallery was definitely a challenge to curate in, being a bank lobby and all.  They had these bizarre temporary walls, and only a few plinths, so we had to be really creative.  Plus there's the matter of a huge pendulum swinging in the space.  That coupled with the diversity of the 37 pieces we had, it was hours upon hours of preparation.

 
Everything from screens, to chairs, to tea sets, to music stands, to everything you could think of.  We even managed to hang a kayak from the ceiling.

But the Cornerstone space up on Burnaby Mountain was the definite challenge - a raw space with no walls or even lighting:

Raffi had the brilliant idea to build temporary walls, which we did - all 16 of them...

We also created plinths inside some of them with back lighting:

We installed temporary lighting to the ceiling and built a few basic plinths as well.  Many, many days later, here was the result:

Many thanks to all the 5 who helped, and also to Rachel Forbes, the Community Trust Planning Assistant, who put in innumerable hours for this entire project from beginning to end.