A professor in the faculty of architecture at the University of Manitoba, Eduardo Aquino studied visual art and urban planning in Brazil and then earned a master’s degree in visual arts from Concordia University in Montréal. With Karen Shanski, he founded the collective spmb, whose activities are cross the line between art and architecture. In winter 2010, in collaboration with Arni Haraldsson, the collective presented the exhibition Séjour au Copan/Copan Projects, a foray into the life of inhabitants of the Copan Building, designed by the famous architect Oscar Niemeyer, at the Maison de l’architecture du Québec.
- 10 Artworks
- 35min
- Le cycle de la pollinisation
Untitled
Artwork description
The installation is placed in the showcase of the Maison de la culture Maisonneuve and in the small square on the land in front of the building. The words “Vous êtes ici” (You are here) are engraved on the windows. At nightfall, the windows are illuminated by a bluish light. On the surface of a bench placed a few metres away is a map of the neighbourhood that highlights some of its distinctive attributes.
The various elements that make up the artwork evoke the past and present of the neighbourhood and celebrate its culture. Using a strategy of disappearance, the intervention is discreet but symbolically anchors the position of the cultural centre, as well as the presence of its users. Through its subtle presence, Vous êtes ici underlines the site’s new physical typology of and its new cultural topology.