When The Hosts Come Home
T&T (Tony Romano and Tyler Brett), FALSE CREEK, February 5 – March 3, 2010
Köbberling and Kaltwasser, THE GAMES ARE OPEN, 2010 – 2015
Cedric, Nathan and Jim Bomford, DEADHEAD, 2014
When the Hosts Come Home was an ambitious Other Sights series of art projects that presented three different collaborative-based artist teams who used recycled and repurposed materials to produce large-scale sculptural works that addressed the meaning of “legacy” in relation to Vancouver’s evolving urbanity.
The series began during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the massive spectacle event that continues to spark international debate about the values of the legacies left in its wake. The first two projects, “False Creek” and “The Games are Open”, made references to the Olympic Games and Vancouver’s Olympic Village – a residential community that was designed to first house the athletes before transitioning from dormitory to home. The series title, When the Hosts Come Home, refers both to the condominium owners claiming their properties post-Olympics, and the local Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations whose traditional lands upon which Vancouver was built, remain as unceded Coast Salish territory. “Deadhead”, the third and culminating project in the series moved from land to water to further investigate “hosting” and the jurisdictional issues that mitigate occupation.
Working from an attitude of creative re-use, all three teams used informal methods to make visible the transformation of begged, borrowed, donated, salvaged, or found materials into publicly used objects and spaces. Whether finding new uses for old forms, embracing decay, or creating monuments to the imagination, T+T, Köbberling and Kaltwasser, and the Bomfords responded to social moments and promoted public engagement. All three projects were eventually claimed and ‘taken up’ by others, their forms and uses evolving, their end-dates still unfixed.
Re-use and regeneration have agency across the fields of art, architecture, urban planning, environmental, and social sciences – this series provided platforms to bring together a wide range of people, audiences, and interest groups to further this discourse.
When the Hosts Come Home was made possible through support from our funders: Arts Partners for Creative Development, British Columbia Arts Council, Burrard Arts Foundation, The Canada Council for the Arts, The City of Vancouver, Hamber Foundation, The Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation, Vancouver Foundation. We are also grateful for the generosity of Vancouver Parks and Recreation, Blue Water Systems Ltd, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Evergreen, Great Northern Way Trust, Integral Design, Langara College Centre for Art in Public Spaces, Pendulum Gallery, Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver Chamber Choir, Vancouver Maritime Museum, Millennium Development Group, and numerous individuals.