Lorna Brown

Kristina Lee Podesva: Vehicle

2009

Vehicle re-purposed the symbolic and architectural space of shipping containers to catalyze conversations and collaborations concerning our experience and understanding of globalization. It provided a spatial and programmatic frame for slowing down global flows for speculative study. Through a series of reading rooms and re(writing) events, the project proposed that intimate and interactive site could localize and temporarily slow rapidly moving global currents.

Vehicle’s Reading Rooms
An integral part of the project included reading rooms, inspired by Aleksandr Rodchenko’s Worker’s Room for the 1925 Paris Exposition. For each room, I worked with a collaborator to create three, one month-long installations — “Thought for Food” (with Jeffrey Swartz), “Copy Room” (with Jeff Khonsary), and “Book Drop” (with Vanessa Kwan). Each room broadly and respectively investigated themes of consumption, property, and labour in conjunction with Vehicle‘s overall study of globalization.

Vehicle’s (Re) Writing Events
In dialogue with Vehicle‘s reading rooms were events and activities that took an experimental and informal approach to the study of globalization through small group meetings, workshops, and discussions. These events developed through collaborations with the Langara faculty, students, and local residents.

Kristina Lee Podesva: Vehicle was the inaugural artist residency of The Langara College Centre for Art in Public Spaces , a program facilitated by Lorna Brown.