Local artist forced to take down art installation
Posted Oct 11, 2017 05:05:50 PM.
Last Updated Oct 11, 2017 05:09:18 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Paul Roorda is a local artist and is getting some flack about his art installation.
His project, called ‘Time Stop,’ involves old metal cash boxes with a window cut in them, and items displayed inside the box.
“I went out early on Saturday and put them up in a neighbourhood,” Roorda tells 570 NEWS, “AND by Monday morning I had a knock at the door and a police officer was asking me if it was my art, and if so I would have to remove them otherwise they would be removed by the by-law officers.”
Roorda says there must have been a complaint about the art installation for him to be forced to take them down.
“I think because of the context of being outdoors in a public space rather than a gallery, they were not fully understood to be harmless,” he says. “I don’t want to exaggerate the concern, but I’m imagining someone didn’t fully understand and think maybe this should not be here.”
Roorda says he suspects which one of his boxes may have caused the problem: “The one thing that could have made someone kind of uncomfortable, there is a vintage box with ammonia inhalants, and typically those were used to wake someone up from unconsciousness,” says Roorda. “My whole point for putting it in there was to say we have to snap out of our complacency about climate change.”
Roorda says he is not sure what he will do next, but he hopes to get this project to work as he intended.
