Sheridan’s Brampton Campus Will House This New Unique Art Installation

Published March 8, 2019 at 2:37 am

An emerging partnership between the city of Brampton and Sheridan College has led to the latter playing host to a very unique art installation.

An emerging partnership between the city of Brampton and Sheridan College has led to the latter playing host to a very unique art installation.

Sheridan’s Davis Campus has selected a Toronto-based artist to feature a piece of work that exemplifies the connections between the college and the city,

Joshua Vettivelu will bring their “This Light” installation to be displayed at the Davis Campus Library in Brampton from March 4 to August 2.

Vettivelu, an instructor at OCAD University, describes the installation as connected to the stories community members shared with him.

“After spending time on campus…I realized many students were experiencing their first winter in Canada, accompanied by a decreased amount of sunlight,” Vettivelu said. “This has measurable effects on the body.”

“I started to think about the effect of light, and what longing can feel like on a molecular level, when we can no longer absorb something that we expect to always nourish us. By splitting up sunlight into its visible spectrum, I wanted to call attention to how something as ordinary as sunlight is greater than the sum of its parts,” they said.

The artwork itself was created through text and images cut from plexiglass, with its physical location on the library rotunda and windows allowing for rainbow light and shadows to be cast on interior surfaces.

These subsequently reveal messages and scenes throughout different times of the day.

Amidst nation-wide calls for proposals from artists to envision and implement an installation that responds to the connections between the Davis Campus and Brampton, Sheridan’s annual Temporary Contemporary program offered an opportunity for curators to realize their ideas via the college’s vibrant community.

“Brampton is a youthful, diverse community, and we’re pleased to see those qualities reflected in this installation,” Mayor Patrick Brown said of the program selection.

“We recognize the importance of nurturing and supporting our creative community, and hope that the City’s partnership with Sheridan College on this project and the workshop for aspiring artists, will inspire the next generation of creators.”

Hopefully, this could be one of the ways that puts the spotlight on how effective art can be in further showcasing the city to a national and international audience, given the current arts underfunding circumstances surrounding the city. 

Vettivelu is expected to present a public artist talk sometime in May 2019.

For more information about this year’s Temporary Contemporary installation, click here.

Do you think this is an exciting venture between Sheridan and artists, Brampton?

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