[00:00:02] He's named it the Drunk Frat Boy test. And essentially you have to consider what would happen if a team of drunk frat boys encountered whatever you're placing in public space. They might climb on it, pull on it, pour beer on it, pee on it and whatever you're installing needs to be able to withstand any abuse that befalls it.

[00:00:22] It does feel like a catch 22 a little bit because the only way to learn public art is to do public art. The reality is that public art can not fail. If it's in public space, it needs to be safe. It cannot fall on someone, it cannot break and harm a person. And I feel like any other career out there, the motto is fail 99 times and succeed the hundredth time. And that's simply not possible with permanent public art.

[00:00:45] Public art is not fast. There's lots of approvals. A lot of my projects for permanent pieces, I'm looking at five to ten years.

[00:00:55] Wow!

[00:00:56] Yeah. So you have to make sure the artist still likes their idea in five to ten years.

[00:01:01]

[00:01:02] I think it's the role of artists and public art commissioners to question what kind of content we should be seeing around our cities. And it doesn't all have to be serious. Our lives in the world are serious enough, let's make sure there's some room for joy and hope and absurdity in our cities.

[00:01:24] Welcome to the Installation Art podcast, the world's number one and only podcast about installation art and the people who work with it.

[00:01:34] In this show, you will hear about the joys and challenges of the medium and get a behind the scenes look at the career and process of internationally renowned guests. I am your host, Anastasia Parson.

[00:01:49] In this episode, we're back on the topic of public art from a new angle. After episode 30 aired featuring Elizabeth Lewis from Tilt, where we discussed the ins and outs of public art project management and fabrication. I was contacted by today's guest who wanted to shed some more light on the matter.

[00:02:10] Katriina Campitelli is a public art curator with over a decade of experience. Based in Toronto, Canada, she has also lived in France and Italy, and has commissioned and produced more than 400 temporary installations and 17 permanent public artworks and monuments; spanning across festivals, municipalities, institutions and grassroots initiatives.

[00:02:35] I hope this episode can shed some more light on the somewhat obscure and sometimes intimidating public art commissioning process. As well as what is actually the role of a public art curator. So without further ado, here is our conversation with Katriina Campitelli.

[00:02:55] Thank you for reaching out to me to come and talk about what you do and try to demystify public art processes a bit further. I think it'll be really helpful for our listeners.

[00:03:08] I am so excited to be here and to be chatting with you.

[00:03:11] I like to start with a round of easy, quick questions. How does that sound?

[00:03:19] Let's do it.

[00:03:20] Tell me about a secret hobby or interest that you have.

[00:03:25] Ooh. I have recently gotten into woodworking. My husband and I bought a house recently and it was an old house and the previous owner had covered up a chimney um, and a fireplace, but it was in such bad condition, so I decided to build my own fireplace and cutting all the wood and trim and doing all these things.

[00:03:47] And now that that project's done, I'm like, oh, should I build some furniture? Like, what should I do next?

[00:03:53] That's funny. I'm exactly in that same place. I've started making a hallway bench 'cause I couldn't find the perfect one.

[00:04:02] Sometimes you can't find something and you're like, I could make that.

[00:04:05] Yeah. Well, earlier this year I found this YouTube channel where this young woman is living alone in the forest and is like renovating this old country house in Sweden, all on her own with no skills. And I was like, I need to get into woodworking.

[00:04:25] Like using the saw at first was really a bit overwhelming. But once you get the handle of it, you feel very powerful.

[00:04:33] Yeah. Cool. I love that. What's your go-to source of inspiration or something that helps you recharge creatively?

[00:04:44] Just being in nature. Going for walks, going for runs. It's one of those things where you can be thinking about a problem and how to solve it but you need to remove yourself from the situation in order to come up with that idea. And I feel like once the fresh air hits you, you, you resolve it somehow. It's like magic

[00:05:06] Yeah. And what's your favorite beverage while you're working?

[00:05:12] working in a professional capacity, i'm a green tea girl. But with working with artists, there's a lot of after hours events or discussions. So I mean, if it's after like 4:30-5, it's not uncommon for there to be wine on the menu.

[00:05:31] Any specific wine that you prefer?

[00:05:33] Oh, I am, I don't discriminate. I'm not picky.

[00:05:38] Okay. All right, Katriina. Well, let's get into the meat of the story and go back in time a bit. Tell me briefly about where did you grow up and what kind of stuff were you into as a kid?

[00:05:54] I grew up where I'm calling in from now in, in Toronto, Canada. My mom was born in Finland near Helsinki and she moved to Toronto as a teenager. and my dad's family and my Italian last name, grandparents came over during, they tried to come over during the second World War to escape what was going on over there and ended up coming over shortly afterwards.

[00:06:18] So I have this mixed and recent immigrant family and a lot of vowels in my name. We did a lot of traveling as a kid. My parents really wanted us to grow up in Finland and Italy, while also having ties to Canada. So we've spent a lot of time traveling and we, we were just never the family that had like the renovated house or the new cars or anything, but my parents made sure that we were going to go to other cities. So they were, yeah, very supportive of us traveling and having new experiences.

[00:06:55] As supportive as my parents were of like museums and theaters and travel and art, I feel like as a child of immigrants you don't Feel you couldn't take a lot of risks in your life. So for a lot of my life, I didn't actually... arts was a viable career path.

[00:07:10] But I was always very interested in those kinds of things. My parents always showed me museums and art and stuff growing up. so it's funny that I ended up landing this way anyway.

[00:07:20] So what did you study?

[00:07:22] I ended up studying Canadian history, Canadian art and Canadian politics for my undergrad. I want to say that that was a strategic choice or something that I wanted to do in my life. But the reality was I, I was working about 40 hours a week as a bartender at the same time that I was in university. So I just wanted things that had a lot of overlap and that were kind of easy for me. Because if you were reading about Canadian history, then you talked about the politics and then the politics and the history influenced the art of the time and I feel like I could just recycle the same textbooks and readings for all of my courses.

[00:08:00] So it was kind of a a strategic uh, plan. And then I wasn't sure what I wanted to do and eventually I did find myself working in art galleries. And it wasn't until I was about 30 that I decided to go back to school and get my Master's.

[00:08:15] I moved to Italy to do my master's. I went back to

[00:08:19] in Italy!?

[00:08:20] about. In Italy. Um, I was studying culture, cultural policy and I think it was really nice to go back to school and I didn't have to work. And I had the time to develop what I actually wanted to learn. So I think it was a really good experience going back when I was quite a bit older. And also I got to live in Italy for a year.

[00:08:44] Yeah! Did you write your Master's thesis in Italian?

[00:08:48] No, the course is in English. Thankfully. And it was a really fun international program, like there was students coming from all over the world, so it was, it was a lot of fun. You got to meet a lot of people.

[00:08:59] I spent a lot of time with my Master's actually researching the benefits of public art and how it could be leveraged for economic development and tourism. And then, yeah, I thought back to all this traveling I'd done with my family and how many cities that we'd gone to because of their landmarks and their museums and their culture. so yeah, fast forward to today and that's, that's what I do for a living.

[00:09:23] Cool! So is that when you got into the curating and public art spheres, during your master's?

[00:09:31] Technically, yes. I think that's when I was aware that I was doing it. But I think there were other things in my life. In my early twenties, there was a citywide festival in Toronto and JR, the artist, came and did his inside out program, which is taking photos of community members and pasting them up on buildings around the city. And I was working in one of the buildings that they were doing that and they were looking for volunteers to help. So I helped wheat paste people's faces onto, onto this building. And so I was in my early twenties then and that was kind of my first exposure. But I don't think it was until I did my master's that I kind of got over that mental hurdle of deciding that this was a viable career path, it wasn't a fantasy to work in the arts.

[00:10:22] Yeah. So tell me, kind of start to finish, what your work process looks like? Like how do projects come to you in the first place?

[00:10:35] Definitely. In terms of permanent public art, a public art project normally starts because of a larger project, such as designing a new park or replacing a bridge or building a new housing development. So the percent for public art program is a very common method used by many municipalities, where effectively 1% of a development or construction budget needs to be dedicated to public art.

[00:11:02] And there are variations on this, depending on the municipality. I know that Helsinki has a 10 euro per square meter fee that's collected from developers instead of 1%. But the, the public art curator really has a balancing act to perform. They not only manage project budgets and timelines, but they also kind of have to be a bridge between the artist that gets commissioned and project stakeholders, architects, and the commissioning body.

[00:11:32] So public art curator is essentially responsible for commissioning the professional artist. And often a commissioning body will hire a public art curator, or they'll have one on staff already to facilitate the selection for a specific project. And of course, there's variations depending on where you're located and if the commissioning body is a government, an institution, or a developer.

[00:11:55] Also, if the space where the art will be installed is private property or public land. If it's public property and government run, the commissions normally happen through open competitions because a lot of the time it counts as government procurement. So in this situation, a curator would be responsible for doing research about the site, the local history, the context, the community, writing the call for artists and the artist brief, hiring a jury or selection panel, creating an evaluation procedure in which to rate or score applications that you get. and then facilitating that artist selection.

[00:12:35] So it's basically like pretty much everything that needs to happen in the pre-selection process is the curator's job?

[00:12:44] Pretty much, definitely. And I mean, some municipalities have public art committees rather than juries, so those might already be in place. and then the public art curator will also work with whoever is selected to refine their ideas for the design, for the installation, and then work with them all the way until they get installed in public space, ensuring that they're technically feasible, safe for the public to be around. And so it's really a start to finish kind of job.

[00:13:16] I will say that if the commissioner is an institution like an arts council, a museum, a university, or a private developer like a condo or a mall, the public art curators normally do have more leeway where they can appoint or directly commission artists that they think would best suit the space.

[00:13:36] And maybe I should pause here and note that, especially in places like Australia and Canada, when we're talking about lands like this, the land in question was taken through force, or thievery or trickery. And these indigenous and often unceded lands have been divided into public and private property through colonial practices.

[00:13:56] Yeah.

[00:13:58] You mentioned that the curator's either part of the staff or is hired for a project. Which one are you? Are you a freelancer or you're part of an organization?

[00:14:12] I do a bit of both. I think a lot of people in the arts wear a few different hats. So I do work for an institution where I get to do that as part of my day job. But then I also have the flexibility where I can commission things for festivals or temporary public art projects and stuff like that. So, yeah, every day's a new adventure. Every project's a little bit different.

[00:14:36] sounds like it's a pretty, you have to wear a lot of hats and it's a pretty diverse kind of set of tasks you have to keep in your brain.

[00:14:48] Definitely, definitely. But yeah, it's, it's a fun place to work, as I said. I've done a lot of commissioning now, so whether it's permanent or temporary, ephemeral festivals, events, sculptures, mosaics, murals, projection mapping, and yeah, every project's totally different and you're working with different teams and different artists, so it doesn't feel very repetitive, even if you might be going through the process again and again.

[00:15:14] And I just love the fact that public art is so accessible. There's no barriers to entry, there's no opening hours. You're not gonna get glares from a gallerist who you think is judging you. You don't have to pay a ticket. It's really an opportunity to democratize art and bring culture to everybody. And it can be a destination, it can be a landmark but it can also be unexpected.

[00:15:38] You can be walking around town doing some errands, and then turn a corner and have an artistic experience that you weren't anticipating. So I, I love this idea of sprinkling art throughout our lives and bringing culture to us where we are, rather than making us go somewhere else.

[00:15:56] Yeah, I've definitely experienced that in Sydney, where I'm taking a shortcut through a dingy laneway, and then I'm like, what's this? Oh, oh, it's art.

[00:16:10] It makes our lives so much more enjoyable.

[00:16:13] yeah. So you mentioned volunteering for the JR project, which kind of inspired you to think about arts as a career but how did you actually get into public art curating as a job? I.

[00:16:28] It actually started during the early months of the pandemic. Because all of the galleries and places where I had been working previously had shut down. And so it was kind of the only option was to go out in public space where it was safe and you knew people could see things. Um so some of those projects were things I did my own. Some of them were with my organization doing projection mapping. I essentially created a projection mapping festival around my city because it was supposed to bring joy and hope and some entertainment and yeah, a little spark of excitement for a time where you weren't expecting that and you couldn't do anything.

[00:17:16] Yeah. Cool.

[00:17:17] And now I've been doing it for over five years.

[00:17:19] So how do you... like if you are the one finding an artist for a specific project, how do you find those artists?

[00:17:30] a lot of it is working in your local art scene and kind of keeping an eye on who's making moves. Getting introduced to people is fantastic. I always keep a list on my phone of artists I am watching, and I can't wait to see what they do next, to see if they are ready for that next step or where their studio work could take them outdoors in public space.

[00:17:54] what would be the indications for you that an artist is ready to go into the public space from the studio?

[00:18:02] they have to be thinking about the visitor or the viewer experience. It can't just be: this is my art and I'm creating art within a vacuum. If you're doing permanent public art, you need to be able to respond to a community and be thoughtful about site and be open to being responsive to that site.

[00:18:25] So the openness and flexibility and willingness and maturity to put your own ego a bit to the side, to be open to those other conversations and just thinking about somebody enjoying it that's not you. Because once you put your art there, you don't have control over it anymore. You don't have control over The narrative or what people do or how people use it or access it.

[00:18:47] So those are... some of the things I'm looking for are functional skills that they're doing things that are technically ambitious. But a lot of it is also personality and maturity of, of the artists and if I think they're ready.

[00:19:01] But I will say I am an advocate a lot of the time for doing open competitions because there's no way I can know everybody. I can't know of every artist. So by doing these open calls, you do get exposure to, to people you might not have been able to meet.

[00:19:15] Yeah. So if somebody would want to get into making public art but they don't know how to go about it, or they don't quite have the skills to build something themselves like that or the material knowledge, how would they get started?

[00:19:34] Oh my gosh. It's one of my goals in life to didn't mystify this public art project because I think there is so much mystery around it.

[00:19:41] yeah,

[00:19:42] I mean, I've read quite a few open calls in my time and pretty much every time I'm like, that sounds great but I have no idea like how to propose anything. 'cause I don't know what materials this should be made of or, you know, like...

[00:20:00] yeah, some of the challenge for graduating into public art is not having space or access to, to materials to do that kind of experimentation. So one thing I recommend to artists that are looking to make that jump is to start by sketching. Start by rendering. Just proving to commissioners or juries that you're thinking in three dimensional, that you're thinking about spaces, I think is really helpful cause then you can wrap your brain around access points and what needs to go where.

[00:20:32] I also really advocate for making language in your proposals or applications accessible. I think that public art is for everybody and you shouldn't need an advanced degree to, to understand it. Also on, on juries, there's often community members or local business owners there too. And they won't have an arts degree, so you need to make sure that you're not alienating anybody and that they can understand your proposal because you can't get awarded a commission if you can't communicate your idea.

[00:21:05] And then you mentioned like the technical requirements, and I think you do need to start researching materiality. I encounter a lot of artists that maybe delusively think that their artwork will always look the way it did when it was first installed. And there are so many environmental features, especially in Canada where we have four seasons and we go from plus 40 to negative 40.

[00:21:27] There are materials that will change color with time, some because the materials naturally age and some because they'll change color if a dog urinates on it or something like that, you know. So there are these technical feasibility safety things that you need to be thinking about.

[00:21:44] And unfortunately we live in a world where not every person out there is a decent human. And some will climb on the art and some will deface it, and some will vandalize it.

[00:21:52] One of my artists once told me that when he's designing for public space, he has this uh, he's named it the Drunk Frat Boy test. And essentially you have to consider what would happen if a team of drunk soccer hooligans or frat boys encountered whatever you're placing in public space. They might climb on it, pull on it, pour beer on it, pee on it, like, and whatever you're installing needs to be able to withstand any abuse that befalls it.

[00:22:20] And it, it does feel like a catch 22 a little bit because the only way to learn public art is to do public art.

[00:22:27] the reality is that public art can not fail. If it's in public space, it needs to be safe. It cannot fall on someone, it cannot break and harm a person. And I feel like any other career out there, there's like, the motto is fail 99 times and succeed the hundredth time or like experiment and play. And that's simply not possible with permanent public art.

[00:22:48] So it's one of these really challenging things for artists, especially if they're used to having a studio practice where they're encouraged to experiment. And then in public art, you're thrown into this regulated and rigid world with building codes and permits and rules and the weight and the seriousness and the pressure to succeed. And it can be tough on artists.

[00:23:09] And I think that's why mentorship and learning opportunities are so important. And why temporary public art, like for festivals or sculpture gardens or biennale are so important, it's so that artists have opportunities to build up their public art experience.

[00:23:24] And if I can give another piece of advice or another tip, it's to build your team. Public art is a team sport. I've met very few public artists that can do everything. Most have a fabricator and an engineer and a project manager and a documentation team and installers and advisors like curators and gallerists and and so forth. So you don't need to do it all, and you don't need to do it all alone.

[00:23:52]

[00:23:53] But how do you go about finding the right team members and collaborators and convince... like, you know, there are a few fabricators here and there who actually specialize in public art, but most of them don't. How would you convince busy professionals to get on board with weird, unconventional art projects?

[00:24:23] You know what's so funny is that for some recent projects, instead of going to professional public art fabricators, I've had some artists go to people that manufacture railings or banisters or something else that's a little unconventional. And a lot of the time they've been really open to taking a break from their, their other work and working on something a little more fun.

[00:24:49] A few years ago I was working on a project and the sculpture was very big and we had to have it painted in advance. And we couldn't figure out how to do that and the artist eventually went to an auto repair shop because they had the tools needed to paint something of that size.

[00:25:06] So I actually, I kind of love the idea of going outside the box. But at the end of the day, a relationship between an artist and a fabricator is a bit of a, a give and take, it is a relationship. You should be able to go to your fabricator and say: this is what I want to do, and they should be able to say: that's not feasible but we could do it like this or what do you think of this? And have that negotiating relationship

[00:25:32] that said, we've had stories on the show where somebody was told: well, we can't do that, that's not possible. And then somebody higher up had to be interested enough to push and say well, how could you make it happen? Like, think out of the box and then it was, it was done.

[00:25:56] you need to find champions for your work. And especially for public art projects, when they are kind of one piece in a larger puzzle, like building a bridge or building a park. And it's just kind of the one public art piece you need to, and I mean, it's kind of like the, the public art curator's job to make sure that those other stakeholders are on board and championing your work.

[00:26:21] Tell me what kind of skills have you had to learn in this process?

[00:26:26] I feel like I am a translator or a bridge. I think a lot of people that went to school for cultural policy or the arts don't necessarily know architect-speak or know how to read building plans or construction documents. So those are skills that I had to pick up pretty quickly. And then also just being able to, as I said, translate the architect-speak into the curatorial artist speak, and then translate that to the public. To make sure it's accessible. Being able to kind of flip those switches on and off and take those hats on and off is definitely a skill I, I had to, to learn.

[00:27:04] Is there a lot of consolidation or convincing involved in your job, like convincing the client about the artwork or convincing the artist about making certain changes to make the work more durable?

[00:27:21] There certainly can be, especially with the technical reviews. Yeah, you have to make sure things are safe for public space and sometimes that means an artist has to compromise their vision. So being able to negotiate with them.

[00:27:36] I think the other thing is that artists often go through phases in their work, or they'll be really dedicated to one theme and then they'll switch gears and look at another theme. And trying to keep the artist on theme for that project, because these are long projects. Public art is not fast. There's lots of approvals. If you're building a park with a sculpture in it, you pretty much have to wait for most of the park construction to be practically over before that installation happens.

[00:28:06] What kind of timeframes are we talking about?

[00:28:09] A lot of my projects for permanent pieces, I'm looking at five to ten years.

[00:28:14] Wow!

[00:28:16] Yeah. So there's a couple things there. One is that you need to make sure you're working with a team that you enjoy working with because you want to make sure you and that artist are still getting along after 10 years.

[00:28:28] And in addition to that, you have to make sure the artist still likes their idea in five to ten years. Because as I said, when you apply for this, you might be really into theme A, but by the time the piece is installed, you might have moved on to something entirely different in your practice.

[00:28:45] One hundred percent! I cannot imagine.

[00:28:50] even after that, then the artist still needs to be happy for that artwork to represent them for the foreseeable future.

[00:28:56] So my recommendation for artists is you need to keep working on your concept until you absolutely love it and you feel confident that you're going to continue to love it in the future. And then it's kind of also the role of the public art curator to ensure they're making something that has that longevity for them.

[00:29:15] Yeah, that's really hard, I cannot imagine, honestly. I've been in a situation where I worked on a proposal for something and two years later I'm like: I really hope they don't accept it 'cause I don't wanna make that anymore. I, I'm so over it. I don't wanna think about that project, I don't wanna know about it.

[00:29:39] Oh, that's amazing.

[00:29:42] So I, I can't imagine how Yeah, you have to. You have to work really hard to find artists who can persevere on one thing for five years and still think, yeah, that's good.

[00:29:58] Exactly. Definitely. And I mean, I think that's also one of the reasons that I, I personally like getting the community involved in these projects where I can, so that the artist might have more of a tie to the community, or if you're making something that's really specific or responsive to a particular location, it feels more authentic and you don't mind dedicating those like five to ten years working on a project when you're aware of that community.

[00:30:28] And when I say community, I'm really talking about like the people who will see the artwork all the time in their daily lives, on their commute, when art becomes a marker for their, for their neighborhood.

[00:30:38] Can you give me an example?

[00:30:41] Yeah, I have many examples. I can give some good examples and some bad examples.

[00:30:45] Yeah, go on, both..

[00:30:47] there's been some recent cases around the world where communities have rallied to have pieces of public art removed because they no longer reflect their community or their values. And I've seen projects canceled because the community didn't support it.

[00:31:00] And I'm not just talking about like removing monuments here. One of my favorite examples is: it's a sculpture called Charity the Cow by an artist named Ron Baird. And this story takes place in Markham, which is a city in Canada, nearby to Toronto. And this is in 2017-2018. So there's this area of houses that all surrounds this small square park and essentially overnight in this park that all the houses face, an eight meter or like a 20 foot tall chrome cow appeared essentially overnight. And the cow was at the perfect height where you could look out your second story bedroom window and be face-to-face with a cow.

[00:31:43] Wow, gigantic.

[00:31:46] Yes. And the neighborhood, they rallied and they went to their elected officials and they demanded that they remove this cow that nobody had spoken to them about. And I think it was after close to two years of this rallying that the sculpture was eventually removed. And there's actually a Canadian National Film Board documentary about this incident, but it's just, it's so negative. Like not only was it a waste of funding, but it was obviously upsetting for both the artist and the neighborhood. Like imagine you're an artist and there's a crowd of angry villagers who like hate your art that much.

[00:32:19] And then the neighborhood for having to endure that. And it's important to know that there's nothing inherently wrong with a giant chrome cow sculpture, it's the fact that it was plopped in this community without letting anybody know, without speaking to the people that'll be seeing it every day without allowing them to have an opinion on what they'd like to see in their neighborhood or what should represent their neighborhood

[00:32:42] That seems very strange. I feel like at least in Australia, even if there's like something happening two blocks away, you get a letter from the council saying you can weigh in on this project during these dates.

[00:32:58] Definitely. I think that's what should happen. And there's much less vandalism when people are spoken to about the art or they get the opportunity to consult or even just meet with the artist because then they're attaching someone's face and personality to, to the artwork.

[00:33:15] And then it also creates like a sense of community, pride and ownership over the piece instead of it just appearing and being like, what was that?

[00:33:24] and it's important to note, like when I'm encouraging including the community in these projects, I don't mean that I'm advocating for artists to have community members create a cheesy painted ham print mural, or like, I'm not advocating for bad and unprofessional art. I'm saying that there is a conversation or conversations that need to take place with the people that will have to endure the art on a daily basis. And there are some fabulous examples of temporary sculptures that have been made permanent because of community support.

[00:33:55] My favorite example is a sculpture in Milan of a middle finger. And it's located right outside the, the stock exchange in Piazza Affari. It's by Maurizio Cattelan and he titled it L.O.V.E.

[00:34:09] And people tend to call it Il Dito, which is the finger because it's a 36 foot tall or 11 meter tall marble hand. But all of the fingers have been cut off except for the middle one, which stands straight up and faces the Italian stock exchange. And this was originally supposed to be a one year project, it was installed I think in 2010, but the public enjoyed it so much that they've made it permanent. It's, it's been there ever since.

[00:34:39] Yeah, I love that one.

[00:34:40] And then there's another example, also from Italian sculptor called Francesco Perilli, who created a monument for Toronto in 1984. And it was called the Monument to Multiculturalism and it was donated to Toronto from the Italian community and the sculpture's bronze.

[00:34:58] And it depicts a, a naked man who is surrounded by doves and they kind of surround him to form a globe.

[00:35:06] And it was kind of a controversial installation because the community wanted the sculpture installed but the public art committee at that time said the sculpture wasn't creative or it wasn't good enough. So the voices of the community essentially overpowered the public art committee. And the sculpture was eventually installed right outside Toronto's main railway station, Union Station.

[00:35:30] And again, it was supposed to be there for one single year. And Joel Sears was this arts writer and he interviewed Francesco and he said like, what do you think should happen in one year's time? And he said: I hope Toronto replaces it with a better piece, I hope that they keep upgrading the quality of art.

[00:35:46] And he said that multiculturalism, which is what his piece is based on, was a great thing to discuss. And he thinks that's more important than a single sculpture. And as long as he got that across, he didn't care if they threw his sculpture in the lake when it was done. And the irony here is that in spite of the artist being totally okay with having his sculpture removed and then having a rotating display of artists, the community decided to keep it in front of Union Station, and it's been welcoming newcomers for the last 40 years.

[00:36:17] Yeah, it's interesting because most of the stories about public art you hear are the opposite, where the community is just so against something. We had a guest on the show last year, Alex Seton, who told us about like several cases in Sydney where a public project either didn't even happen or the community just railed against it.

[00:36:51] And then there's also examples of works that are installed and people hate it but then it grows on them and then they suddenly love it and don't want it moved. So yeah, it's kind of a very, um I guess divisive or controversial or... yeah, public art is difficult.

[00:37:14] Definitely, but maybe the solution is to commission things on a temporary basis and then if people like it after that time limit, then you say, okay, it stays.

[00:37:24] Yeah, that that sounds like a good idea. I think even though it's probably harder budget wise.

[00:37:31] Definitely, yeah. I mean, with the most common funding model where investment in public art is tied to construction, it's one time funding. You don't get to have a continuous funding program to switch out the art regularly. So I mean, there are some places like The High Line in New York City or London's Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square where they have permanent infrastructure to support temporary public art.

[00:38:00] But on top of that, they have the decent budgets to support their programming. Like I think the fourth plinth in London gets about 200,000 pounds of public funding for each commission and the highline's privately funded, but in a way that allows for that constant rotation of art. So yeah, you're right, realistically, most public art commissions are funded one time and one time only. So they end up being permanent.

[00:38:24] Yeah. Also public art presents some unique logistical and design challenges. Do you have any stories of public art fails or any non-negotiable considerations that are crucial when it comes to public art, whether it's permanent or temporary, as opposed to stuff that's gonna be in a gallery?

[00:38:50] Yeah, I am lucky I haven't had any public art fails, touch wood. But yeah, I think in terms of the longevity of the work, public art, in terms of design, it's, it generally can't be timely. You can't commission a sculpture to discuss something that a politician said last week because it's likely not going to be relevant in 25 years. So. Temporary public art has a super important role. And why, one of many reasons why biennale are so important is because they can be timely and truly encapsulate the moment that we're enduring. And same with museum exhibitions. But that said, I, I still think there's room for the timeless and the histories that we all collectively agree to celebrate.

[00:39:37] Like should the Trevi fountain be just decommissioned because society generally no longer believes in a pagan God of the sea? Or could we just accept that having art that's impactful and impressive is good for ourselves and our humanity? And it might be okay that neighborhoods change and evolve out of the art that you've permanently installed there.

[00:39:57] What if your city has a Chinatown or a Little Italy? That means it probably has some Chinatown gates or some Italian flag murals or, or something noting the area. But what if through time the neighborhoods change, that Chinatown's no longer mostly Chinese? Does that mean we should remove the Chinatown gates since they're no longer relevant?

[00:40:19] Or if little Italy's no longer actually Italian immigrants is okay to leave up Italian focused art? Or is it perfectly fine to leave these items and have them be a marker of what once was or what those streets used to be, even though if they're no longer timely in the present moment? So I, I mean, I personally do think that the most successful public art works are those that are site specific, site responsive, and were developed and commissioned for a particular site, neighborhood, or community.

[00:40:48] But at the end of the day, like public art is more than just art. You know, its existence often achieves other things that are fantastic for cities. Like if you think about the amount of tourists and visitors who travel to Chicago every year to see Cloudgate or The Bean by Anish Kapoor. Millennium Park draws 20 to 25 million visitors every year. So a sculpture, a piece of public art, is helping to bring tourism, which also brings economic development because people are going to wanna grab a coffee or a meal nearby. They're gonna use local hotels and use transit.

[00:41:27] I find the public art, permanent public art makes streets feel safer. If you had two streets that you could take on a walk home late at night, would you rather take a dark empty street or a street that has a sculpture in it and then therefore probably has some extra lighting and then probably also has some seating areas where people are invited to sit and hang out and connect with one another.

[00:41:51] Permanent public art is also more environmentally friendly and sustainable than temporary public art that often creates some waste if it can't be reshown elsewhere. And my final argument for permanent public art is that it's handy for wayfinding. One of my favorite examples is in Philadelphia, right outside city hall, it's a giant clothespin. It's I think like 14 meters, 45 feet tall, by Claes Oldenburg,

[00:42:19] and by clothes pin I literally mean like what you would use to hang up your clean laundry to dry. And this clothes pin was, it was the original meeting place, like before cell phones existed, this is where you'd arranged to meet up with your friends in Philly's downtown. And even now that everyone got a mobile phone, public arts is still handy in situations where you're meeting people in a busy festival environment and you need a reference point or you're meeting someone for the first time, or you're traveling to a new country and your eSIM isn't cooperating with you. So having these markers throughout urban cities is, is so helpful. So I mean, there's all these ways in which public art contributes to the local area, aside from just injecting some beauty and creativity into daily life.

[00:43:04] Yeah. That's awesome. Great arguments for public art. But I wanna talk more about the temporary public art, which is kind of perhaps a potential gateway for artists who are just dipping their toes into that. You mentioned like festivals and things. Tell me more about that, what, what kind of stuff? Who are the people looking for that? What's the timeframes and that kind of stuff.

[00:43:36] I can speak mostly to Toronto based things here. But we'll have like a Nuit Blanche, which I know is also in, in France and a bunch of other cities, which is like a one night public art and experience performance festival. So doing something like that is a really good way to, to get a foothold.

[00:43:55] Also like local and smaller biennials often have some form of public art or very least some installation art. a lot of cities have sculpture gardens or sculpture trails that have rotating commissions or accept proposals. So I think these things, whether it's a 12 hour installation or a six month or a couple year installation, I think there's kind of like steps there where you can, you can graduate with your concepts and make things more and more durable.

[00:44:30] Yeah. I've actually just realized that oh yeah, this thing that I did, could count as public art. Oh, I didn't think of it like that.

[00:44:40] Oh, tell us about it.

[00:44:42] Oh, it's just, it was, uh done for a street festival inside a shipping container for like one weekend.

[00:44:50] Yeah. I mean, so many local streets have like a summer street festival and stuff, and they'll get local artists to decorate the stage if there's performances or put up like a temporary inflatable sculpture that's really easy to put up and take down every day once you start looking for them, you can, you can find them and you can find the opportunities. And I will say that they, because there are more festivals and things happening than. A single permanent public art call because you need that funding. And the permanent public art calls are so competitive. Like if you get, I routinely get close to 200 applications per call and there's only one spot, so you have less than a 1% chance of being selected.

[00:45:38] Whereas if there's a bunch of street festivals, a bunch of art crawls, a bunch of things like this, I think the likelihood of getting in is it's better, it's easier.

[00:45:49] Yeah.

[00:45:53] Hey, a quick intermission to thank everyone who has filled out our listener poll so far. Your feedback has been really helpful!

And if you haven't done it yet, I would love to hear from you.

It only takes a few minutes. It's anonymous, and the link is in the show notes, or you can leave me a voice message at speakpipe.com/installation art podcast. your input is very important, and it will help shape the future of this show.

[00:46:28] Have you ever abandoned a project that wasn't working for some reason?

[00:46:33] No, I haven't, no, I've been very fortunate in that the artists that have been selected have all been wonderful and a lot of the time when you're working with an artist. 3, 5, 7 years, you end up developing a really good relationship and a good friendship. And I've had artists that I've commissioned who I'd never met before and then ended up coming to my wedding a few years later. Um.

[00:47:01] But I will say that, that is an interesting thing in that when a commission is happening through a selection panel, the people on the selection panel are inherently also references. So I've seen a few situations where we'd be discussing an artist and one of the selection panel members will say: we had to cancel that person's exhibition. Like they were so difficult to work with, they were so disrespectful. And then you can kind of figure out how to, you, you can't take on a seven year project with somebody like that, because. Frustrating things in public art happen. Like changes happen, delays happen. There's so many frustrating things. You have to work with somebody that's gonna be flexible and respectful. So having, I guess it's one of those, just a reminder to be kind and respectful to everybody because you never know who's going to be on the next jury reviewing your application and being a reference for you.

[00:47:57] Yeah, good point. I mean, just not being a dick

[00:48:00] in general helps in life. I guess.

[00:48:04] You would think that most people would know that. Yeah.

[00:48:08] How much leeway is there between the initial proposal that somebody submits for an open call and changing things along the way because, I don't know, various things that pop up or something's not working, or you know.

[00:48:25] it's a really, it's a case by case situation. I think there's quite a bit of leeway. I really like it when my artists do some sort of community engagement. Like they go to a school and do like art lessons or they do like a nature walk or they do something so that they can get to know the local community and connect with them. And you'd be amazed at how after doing that, they all of a sudden have a new idea that they want to add or adjust or something. Which is great because then it kind of ties it specifically and respond specifically to that site. so I like to give my artists some room to make these design changes.

[00:49:06] And of course, as we talked before, like the, the technical and material changes. A lot of the times they're non-negotiable. Safety is non-negotiable. Because if we can't be flexible in those ways, then that means the design has to be a little bit flexible. So I do know some people that say like the, the design should never change from the get go, but realistically, as you're connecting with a community and a site for years at a time, there is often some development and refinement that happens.

[00:49:39] Yeah. So it, it sounds like it's maybe a good idea for an artist to go and engage with the community before submitting their application.

[00:49:53] It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to do that, especially if you're not getting paid and you don't know if your application will be successful. And I do think that there's also... if you don't only want local artists in your collection or festival, then it's difficult for international artists or artists that are abroad to commit to something like that.

[00:50:16] But I think definitely some research into what's going on in in the community is helpful.

[00:50:22] yeah, so maybe like build something like that into the application as part of your creative process.

[00:50:34] I love seeing that. And I think a selection panel, especially ones that have community members on it, they want to see that you're interested in connecting with them. They're the people that are gonna see it forever.

[00:50:47] Can you give me examples beyond the two you just mentioned of like what could that look like or what have you seen that has sparked your interest of the type of community engagement artists could propose?

[00:51:03] Oh, I've seen so many. One of my recent commissions, it's a large beaded curtain that goes inside an atrium, and that artist then hired local beading artist to do beading workshops with community members and had that as like a free drop in. And it was so wholesome. It was so warm because it was mostly just like a bunch of women of all ages sitting around and talking and telling stories and sharing things about what had happened in the neighborhood. So the artist got all of this great information and insight into the neighborhood.

[00:51:38] I've seen artists publish books or zines. Going into schools and working with kids is a really popular one. Yeah, I think there's a lot of room for creativity. Oh, I've seen some artists go into like local homeless shelters and doing workshops with them. Like, it, it doesn't have to be everybody, and it's impossible to get everybody. But I think the intentionality of being able to connect with people is something that's kind of critical to our humanity and the public art that we're doing.

[00:52:12] Like digital life increasingly dominates our daily experience. And I'm, I'm feeling so pulled and so drawn to doing things in person and encouraging creating physical built environments and exploring how these spaces can foster a sense of belonging and genuine community. And we deserve to enjoy ourselves offline, in the real world with real art that humans create that we can touch and experience and see without screens.

[00:52:40] And so I think this community engagement, and I mean public art in, in its own way, it plays an important role in creating these environments.

[00:52:48] Yeah. Yeah, and I think the point you made earlier about the local community being able to meet the artist in some way is definitely a huge bonus when it comes to acceptance of the work and warming up to it, rather than just people feeling like some kind of a foreign new entity has landed in their neighborhood.

[00:53:11] Exactly. Absolutely. Also I've done a few competitions where instead of hiring, instead of picking a proposal from an artist, we've just been hiring an artist and then allowing them to go into communities and figure out like what are the, the stories there? Like, what should my inspiration be? And really giving them some time to do that connecting.

[00:53:39] So just basically an open call based on an artist's portfolio and not a specific project?

[00:53:47] Exactly. So it's more nerve wracking because you don't actually know what you're commissioning when you're commissioning the artist because you don't see a concept or a proposal. But it's been shown to be really rewarding for, for both the artists and the community to have the time and having this luxury of this long runway where they can do this research and this engagement.

[00:54:09] Yeah. What's something you wish all clients who commission public artwork knew or considered?

[00:54:19]

[00:54:19] Um, I think we need more room for ridiculousness and absurdity and fun. There's so many public art and monuments where we're memorializing something so serious. I mean in, in Canada and I'm sure Australia, like we have a lot of public art that this is because the Monarch visited us. Or sad events, or natural disasters. And yeah, I, I love examples of fun and weird public art.

[00:54:53] There's one in Toronto called Primrose and it's by Myfanwy MacLeod, and it's a sculpture of a baby donkey named Primrose. And the donkey has pink casts on her front legs.

[00:55:07] It's called Primrose and the sculpture commemorates a lighthearted news report about a little donkey named Primrose who was born too early and was unable to walk. So the vets that were tending to her gave her a pair of casts on her front legs so that she could learn to walk. So commemorating this sort of cute, humorous story, in bronze of all materials, kind of questions like, what are monuments? And in addition, like bringing some silliness to, to the neighborhood.

[00:55:36] Yeah, some whimsy and lightheartedness.

[00:55:39] Totally. There's another one in, in Helsinki. They have a Flamingo Memorial, and it's called Flamigos by Pasi Rauhala.

[00:55:48] And I love this piece. And essentially it's near a zoo. It's near the Korkeasaari Zoo, and they used to have a bunch of flamingos but one day a fox got into the zoo and he mauled two of the flamingos. And that the rest of the birds who did not get attacked, they, they still died just from like the sheer shock of the event. So all of a sudden there were no flamingos left at Korkeasaari Zoo. And this public artwork is, it's a projection and a light-based artwork on the bridge nearby the Kulosaari Bridge. And it memorializes this event by having these kind of moving flamingos projected.

[00:56:25] It sounds kind of ridiculous, but it's actually done in a very elegant and subtle way. So yeah, I'm not by any means suggesting that we move to exclusively commemorating animals. But I just, I love both these examples because they're responsive to things that happened that might not actually be deemed monument worthy. And I think it's the role of artists and public art commissioners to question what kind of content we should be seeing around our cities. And it doesn't all have to be serious. Like our lives in the world are serious enough, let's make sure there's some room for joy and hope and absurdity in our cities.

[00:57:03] Yeah. Helsinki has another great example that I really like. The Amos Rex Museum, which has a very kind of interesting architecture. They have this rotating public art display on the outside of the museum. And I saw that earlier this year and I was like, all the museums should do that! Like you know, in Sydney, the contemporary Art museum here, they have one permanent piece in front of it and they could do so much more with that real estate.

[00:57:37] Hmm, definitely. and it's fun for the community to say, oh, what's in there now? Like, we have a sculpture garden in Toronto that changes exhibitions every six months or so, and it's, it's a very small, like, it's a tiny, tiny park with literally just a sculpture in it at all times. But the community is so engaged with it, and they have like a Facebook group and everything, and they're like, what's in the sculpture garden now? And they take photos and stuff and it, it becomes a draw that it's changed.

[00:58:07] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It, it's interesting to see oh, what's coming next.

[00:58:13] Mm-hmm.

[00:58:14] So continuing on from the last question, what is something you wish that artists knew before starting down the path of applying for a public art project?

[00:58:28] I think coming back to what I was saying at the beginning about artists need to kind of check their, their ego sometimes. Once you're entering public space, the art's not yours anymore, it's the the art of the community. So when you're approaching your applications or a call for artists, I see so many that are like, I want to install my art here. And it's like, no, that's not how it works. your application needs to be like, this is how my art can best serve this community. This is how my art can best represent this neighborhood. It's not: I want my art here and then I'm gonna go do something else. Or it's a good experience for me. All of a sudden it's not just you creating art in your own studio, you have to consider everyone else. You have to consider the community.

[00:59:19] That's interesting. I think in Australia, at least when it comes to arts funding, that's pretty much the norm. Like artists can't just apply for funding cause they want to create this project and they wanna challenge themselves. It always has to have some kind of benefit for the community or somebody else, a third party. Which I think is not as usual in Europe or Asia where you can just apply to create something totally unhinged because it's weird and cool and the funding bodies are like, yeah, let's, let's try that.

[01:00:01]

[01:00:02] I think there's room for both. I, I just wanna avoid what, I don't know, we call "sorry art." And this is when commissions are kind of done, you know as that chore to fulfill the government regulations, like for public art programs. And it's like, sorry for the construction. Sorry for the noise. Sorry for putting up a new condo that looks like every other condo and isn't architecturally interesting. Here is some art.

[01:00:30] And I feel like depending on the commissioner, like some of these pieces can be really well done because they often do have fantastic budgets, but a lot of the time they can also really miss the mark of what they're installing and where.

[01:00:43] So how can they improve on that?

[01:00:46] I think commissioners or curators allowing the time for community engagement or maybe not requesting a final design until community engagement has been done. And again, it doesn't have to be like a community poll, like vote for your favorite artwork. It can literally just be as simple as an artist taking a bunch of community members on a walk around the park where their art's gonna be installed and, and chatting with 'em. But I think it's really important to understand the local contexts, otherwise you can, you can really miss the mark.

[01:01:23] Yeah. Should artists or commissioners include a clause in the contract about the possibility of reviewing the artwork in, say, five years, 10 years time, and having the ability to decide to remove it if it no longer complements the space or the context?

[01:01:48] I think that's an an interesting idea. I haven't seen it before where it's been in an artist's contract that they get the power to revisit it. But I do know a lot of cities or institutions have deaccessioning policies or they're working on their deaccessioning policies, which give the owner of the artwork the right to remove it.

[01:02:10] And this could be the community context, like it no longer reflecting the local values or attitudes. But it could also be as simple as the artwork's not standing the test of time, it's falling apart. Or the artwork had some sort of technology that it was relying on that's now out of date and we can't figure out anybody who can work with this technology and instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to remake this work in new technologies, that's undoubtedly going to expire in another decade, we have the right to deaccession this from our collection. So I think, yeah, a combination of those two ideas...

[01:02:53] I think it's interesting giving the artist that option rather than the owner of the artwork or the commissioner of the artwork. So I think there's definitely a place for both of them.

[01:03:03] I recently spoke to an artist who mentioned that they include a thing in their contract that if the artwork is somehow altered by the owner, by the commissioner, then the artist's name should no longer be associated to it because that's not how they envisioned it. But is there really scenarios in which the artwork can be changed somehow without the artist being involved in it?

[01:03:35] Maybe just naturally? Like if it's bronze that's patinizing and turning green and the artist wasn't aware of that.

[01:03:44] Surely that would be...

[01:03:46] like the patina would be built into the... surely!?

[01:03:50] Hopefully! Hopefully they're not like, mm, I did a bronze statue, but now it looks like a martian so take it down if it turned green. Yeah, the only other thing I could think of is if the work's no longer functioning how it should. Maybe like a fountain with art that was commissioned and then the fountain stopped working, I can't think of... because the, the owner wouldn't really have like a budget to do any kind of ongoing... I don't know how they'd change it. I don't know how they'd have permission to change it. I think it would be an issue of the artist copyright.

[01:04:23] Yeah. Can you highlight a particularly proud or rewarding experience you've had in your career?

[01:04:30] Oh my goodness. I'm so proud of all my projects. If you want to, to look at them, I can give you my Instagram handle or something like that. But being the curator and again, working with artists for a series of years, you feel like they're like your baby chicks in a way. Like you're so proud of them when they get installed. It's impossible to pick just one. And then I think anyone working in the arts has to have like a little bit of delusion to them. And maybe I'm delusional but I still think my, my best things are are ahead of me. It's gonna be the next project. It's gonna be the next festival. It's gonna be the next one, you know?

[01:05:09] yeah. Do you have any like dream projects that you would love to work on or locations?

[01:05:16] Oh my gosh. Anything happening in Venice would just be insane. And I'm sure that's the answer for a lot of artists and curators to be associated with your national pavilion in any way would be incredible. It's obviously competitive, but as I said, you gotta have a little bit of, of delusion. But realistically, like any international biennial or anything would be so fun.

[01:05:42] The other interesting thing about my career is that I kind of started in outdoor space, so I've never actually commissioned something in like a gallery setting. I'm like, what would I do if someone gave me walls? So maybe my big adventure will be curating an exhibition in a gallery rather than outdoors in public. So I'm open to, to whatever happens.

[01:06:06] well since you mentioned Venice, shed some light on the Canadian selection process for the Venice Pavilion.

[01:06:15] Ooh, this is so cloak and dagger.

[01:06:19] Yeah?

[01:06:20] The commissioning happens through our national gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, in our capital, it's Ottawa. And they assemble a jury. Either everyone on that jury has been totally sworn to secrecy or I've never met anyone who's been on that jury, which I think would be kind of bizarre. So these decisions, they are made behind closed doors and there's not a lot of information given.

[01:06:49] So you can't, you don't even know who is on the jury selecting the artists?

[01:06:54] No. I, I don't know if that's maybe like for their privacy or if other artists were being considered or were asked to provide a proposal, like they don't want an upset artist going to the jury and

[01:07:10] Burning their house down?

[01:07:11] Asking why.

[01:07:13] Yeah. Like bugging them and asking like, why didn't you select me? Or.

[01:07:18] Trying to bribe them.

[01:07:20] that, or even if it's like nice things like gifts or dinner invitations, like maybe they're just trying to avoid all of that. But there is certainly a lot of mystery around how those decisions are made.

[01:07:33] Very interesting. I feel like it's kind of similar in Australia, to be honest.

[01:07:40] I listened to your, your podcast with all the Australian Pavilion drama.

[01:07:45] Oh yeah. Yeah.

[01:07:48] What are you working on right now, if you can share?

[01:07:51] Ooh, I'm working on a couple permanent commissions. I am working on hiring an artist to do integrated work for a bridge, which is really cool. So it's gonna be fully integrated into the design, which I love. And then in my other like side practice, I'm working on curating a couple festivals coming up in 2026 and 2027, so I'm looking forward to those.

[01:08:17] Great.

[01:08:19] yeah, I have some fun projects coming up. If you want to follow along or get in touch, my Instagram handle is KatCampitelli, K-A-T-C-A-M-P-I-T-E-L-L-I. And I also share a lot of public art opportunities that I find, so feel free to follow along if that's your thing.

[01:08:38] Yep, definitely. I will put a link to your Instagram in the show notes so people can easily find you and follow you.

[01:08:47] That's great. Thank you so much, Anastasia.

[01:08:50] thanks Kat for taking the time. It's been a pleasure, I learned a lot. I hope the audience did too.

[01:08:57] Thank you so much for, yeah, using your platform for helping people learn and connecting from around the world and for having me as a guest.

[01:09:14] That was Katrina Capelli based in Toronto, Canada. You can find out more about her work on her website, katcampitelli.ca and follow her on Instagram @katcampitelli.

[01:09:28] Links to those as well as everyone mentioned in this episode can be found in the show notes and on our website, installationartpodcast.com.

[01:09:38] If you found this conversation valuable, please share it with a friend or with all your friends by sharing it on social media. Word of mouth is by far the best way to spread the word when it comes to podcasts. Thank you for listening, and until next time.