In her artistic heart, Carolyn Meili has a soft spot for wearable sculpture.
The Guelph artist, a graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and the University of Saskatchewan, has been named this year’s City of Guelph artist in residence.
She has plans to engage the community in symbol making and wearable art design as part of Canada’s 150th anniversary, and Guelph’s 190th.
The multi-disciplinary artist’s goal is to have a number of works assembled in a kind of static, frozen-in-time parade inside city hall. Broad community engagement is integral to the plan.
Coming primarily from a conceptual art background, Meili latched on to the idea of wearing what she makes while a student in Nova Scotia. She also appreciates the quirky and the dislocated.
She once dressed up as an iceberg and drifted through a parking lot in Saskatchewan. The sight of the iceberg suit would have been surprising anywhere, but in Saskatchewan, geographically a no iceberg zone, it was especially incongruous.
Another time, a fascination with the humble tumbleweed resulted in a full-bodied tumbleweed suit, which she wore in a performance piece.
“What I’ve been fascinated with throughout my artistic development is how we come up with ideas of self and symbols of self and identity, and how we create a sense of identity through objects and symbols,” Meili said in an interview at city hall. “My proposal is to work with the community to built up a language of symbols that represent us as a community.”
Jen Rafter, the city’s cultural program and event coordinator, put out a public call for entry earlier this year, inviting artists to submit proposals related to the two anniversaries, suggesting a focus on Guelph’s collective history and the diversity of its background.
Fourteen submissions were received and the public art advisory committee unanimously endorsed Meili’s, which explores Guelph symbols, and challenges the nature in which art is customarily displayed. The committee liked the innovation and imagination behind her well-designed proposal.
Asked for an example of what Guelph-related symbols may surface during the community engagement stage of the plan, she used the example of the backyard chicken.
“It is sort of a symbol of how agriculture and the city are connected, much more than in other cities,” she said. “The symbol of a chicken ties into agriculture and urbanism in a very simple way.”
Meili, the founder of Capacity 3 Gallery and director of the Guelph Film Festival, said she is eager to hear from the community what the most representative symbols of Guelph are. Honouring the community’s indigenous heritage is also an important aspect of the project.
“What I’m hoping is that through seeing the work and participating in the development of it, people will not only see themselves in it, but other pieces of the community that might be new to them,” she added.
Members of the community will be invited to contribute ideas, drawings, stories and more throughout the project, and to contribute everyday objects and materials to be used in the making of wearable sculptures.
The results will be part of an interactive installation and performance during Culture Days, Sept. 29 to Oct. 1.
“I truly love making wearable sculptures,” she said, adding she became interested in the idea while in art school in Halifax. NSCAD is situated in the middle of the tourist district.
“You’d walk out of school and there were people in lobster costumes handing out fliers, or you could buy inflatable Titanics and icebergs,” she said. “When I left Halifax and moved to Saskatchewan to do my master’s degree, I used all my moving boxes to make a large wearable iceberg. I liked what happens when these symbols become isolated from their context, and how you figure out a sense of self and identity through interacting with these images.”
This the fourth year for the city’s residency program, which has a strong emphasis on community involvement. The artist is engaged throughout the summer months.
