Shannon Garden-Smith has never been one to shy away from an artistic challenge, and her most recent creation at this year’s Nuit Blanche demonstrated just that.
The Toronto-based artist and second-year PhD student at York University wowed visitors along the waterfront this past weekend as she debuted perhaps her most extraordinary project to date, an interactive sculpture made of an ordinary material: sand.
Titled “Snail-work (for the lake),” Garden-Smith’s 2,500 square-foot floor installation used vibrantly dyed sand to form marbled patterns that resemble the pages of 19th-century Victorian books.
During last Saturday’s all night Nuit Blanche event, locals and tourists were invited to slowly walk — or “snail” — through her exhibit, disrupting the colours and recreating the sand patterns along the way.
“Snail-work (for the lake)” is part of the festival’s extended program and will remain open to the public until Sunday, Oct. 13.
“It really is my insane, maniacal vision and project,” the artist told TorontoToday. “I’ve been working on variations of this work over the last couple of years, but in much more dedicated, contemporary art spaces that were physically a lot smaller.”
Last fall, Garden-Smith submitted her initial proposal for this year’s Nuit Blanche. She chose to focus her piece on sand, a seemingly ordinary and abundant material that is actually facing a global shortage.
The second-most consumed material in the world and the primary ingredient in concrete and glass, “sand forms the world around us,” according to the 35-year-old artist.
“We’re in this unbelievable situation where we’re running out of the kind of sand that can be used for construction, so it really points to untenable practices of extraction,” she said. “I’m hoping to make people aware of some of these things that are all around us all the time.”
With some help from her team, which included artists, Nuit Blanche volunteers and city workers, Garden-Smith laid around 1,600 kg of sand inside the Waterfront Innovation Centre on Queens Quay East. Most of the sand was dyed an assortment of colours, while black sand was provided by a city supplier.
Working with librarians, she dug through archives to source examples of the marbling patterns found inside the covers of Victorian books.
“They’re beautiful prints to work with,” she said. “They’re prints that currently exist as endpapers in books.”
In the two weeks leading up to Nuit Blanche, Garden-Smith spent 12 hours each day installing and mapping out the giant piece.
“I had a tear in my eye on Saturday night,” she admitted. “Seeing people move through the work and seeing the way that they’re attentive to this material that is all around us was really special. That was the most important part of the work. It’s hard to articulate how special that was to see.”
“Sand is so everyday; it’s kind of this thing that is super mundane in a lot of ways and so often represented as boring,” she added. “My hope for the project is that people are reacquainted with the magic of this thing that is everywhere, but also the magic of our everyday movements.”
While she’s not exactly sure what will happen to the heaps of sand once the project wraps up, Garden-Smith looks forward to taking some of the material back to her studio near Queen and Broadview and using it in a future work.
Raised in Stratford, Ont., at a young age Garden-Smith began cobbling sculptures together out of garbage and perfecting her moves on the dance floor — early signs that unusual materials and movement would shape her artistic vision.
“All the signs were there,” she said. “I’ve been making things for as long as I can remember. Then being invested in a practice of movement with dancing, I think both of those things really came together.”
Worried about the challenges that lay ahead as a teenage artist, Garden-Smith at one point considered becoming a curator or writer.
Despite trying to change career paths, she fell back into her passion for contemporary art.
“I tried to move away from it, but naturally I just couldn’t,” she said.
Earning a Master’s in fine art at the University of Guelph, Garden-Smith is now back in the city and going after her doctorate at York.
While the work can be intense, she’s found many aspects of the program rewarding — especially teaching.
“I find it so nourishing,” she said. “Being the kind of artist I am, it’s a lot of being really hyper-focused on your work and spending a lot of time in your own world. That’s an important place to go, but you can’t be there all the time. You really need to stay grounded and have these opportunities to open yourself back up to how other people think or work.”
“I’m learning things from the students as much as they are from me,” she added. “I really love that feeling.”
“Snail-work (for the lake)” remains on view at 125 Queens Quay East from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. daily until Sunday, Oct. 13.
