In Ottawa’s SAW centre sits a tiny, old TV. The film Mattress City sparks to life on the screen, depicting a man lying on top of a sea of mattresses.
For artists Kika Thorne and Adrian Blackwell, the mattresses are a symbolic statement of protest against the Ontario Conservative government’s decision to cut 200 units of social housing in Toronto in the 90s. The choice directly impacted those experiencing housing insecurity.
Mattress City is the first artistic work in the Give Me Shelter exhibit, which features 12 art pieces that respond to the international issue of homelessness and housing insecurity, offering creative, community-based solutions. The exhibit runs from Oct. 11 to Jan. 25, 2025.
Exhibit co-curator Jason St-Laurent said he chose to start the exhibition with Mattress City because he wanted the audience to see “where those drastic decisions take us many decades later.”
“We’re constantly reflecting on the question of housing and homelessness because we happen to be in the epicentre of the crisis in Ottawa,” St-Laurent said. “Being close to many of the shelters, we can see the situation worsening and we thought maybe this is a good time to see this crisis through the eyes of contemporary artists.”
Local, national and international artists contributed to the exhibit, St-Laurent said, ensuring various interpretations of the homelessness crisis are represented.
“It’s always been sort of a speciality at SAW,” he said. “We want to see if there are parallels in other places around the world.”
Sámi artist Joar Nango and Norwegian artist Tanya Busse produced the book, Vestavin, which instructs how to create custom wine-making kits. The book offers insight on how to turn unusual spaces, such as the backs of bus stations and parking garages, into wine-making areas.
These kits can turn local produce into wine, providing a safer option to cheaper store-bought wines which can contain additives and pesticides.
“It was really like a research-based project that looked at the folk traditions of homemade wine making,” Busse said. “It explored ideas like agriculture and climate and geography, and also engaged with that landscape through a more DIY alternative root for production.”
Busse said the project is ultimately about discovering creative solutions, which can be applied to the housing crisis by offering safe alternatives creates sites for harm reduction in lower-income communities.
“Working with what is on hand, what is available to you … it reveals new perspectives on things,” she said.
British-based artist Andrea Luka Zimmerman collaborated with performance artist and musician William Fontaine to create the film Shelter In Place. The film documents a point in Fontaine’s life when he lived in a public park during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in London, England.
The film has three screens that display three different spaces: the common space of the park, the private space of Fontaine and the public overlap of the community.
Zimmerman said Fontaine became the “oracle” of the park, and people would drift toward him.
“It was very, very beautiful and important to show what is possible in a moment of crisis, when those who have nowhere else to go come and look out for each other,” she said.
Tracy Li, an industrial design student at Carleton University and exhibit attendee, said the exhibit was fascinating.
Li pointed to Michael Rakowitz’s paraSITE emergency shelters, made from just plastic, duct tape and a fan. The assembly is designed to be placed over something warm, like a subway ventilation duct, to maintain heat inside the shelter.
“It’s just such an easy, simple solution,” Li said, in reference to the parasite shelters.
“Even though it’s a conceptual thing, if people had access to even a heated grate or a subway, they could actually use a lot of that heat and be safe in the winter,” Li said.
Li said she thinks the exhibit is an important call to action and hopes attendees are prompted to help bring about positive change in the housing crisis.
“As designers coming into [the exhibit], maybe that’s something we can take into consideration,” she said.
St-Laurent said the SAW Centre’s ultimate hope is that the exhibit prompts a call for action.
“We hope people come away from this exhibition wanting to be involved, wanting to write letters to their MPs or prime ministers … to take a more active role in this crisis that is just worsening by the day.”
A previous version of this article misspelled Joar Nango’s name and did not fulsomely reflect their nationality. This article was last updated on Dec. 9, 2024 to reflect this change. The Charlatan regrets the error.
Featured image by Georgia Looman/The Charlatan.
