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Memento
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Memento comprises of "Untitled (Poodle)", a sculpture located at Main Street and 18th Avenue, and a suite of temporary artworks in and on three trolley buses which run on the #3 Main bus routes. "Memento – Pink" completely wraps an articulated trolley in a knit cozy of a pink poodle and includes an interior card inside the trolley that references a how-to book from the 1960s for making wool poodle cozies. "Memento – Envy", installed on the outside of a second trolley, is a panel which depicts a group of poodle cozies made for bottles looking with longing and jealousy at a porcelain poodle figurine - suggesting the class and cultural differences that historically have marked Main Street. This second trolley also features three thematically related interior cards in which knit figures act as the dramatis personae.
"Memento – Multo", inside a third trolley, features a set of twenty-two interior cards depicting over 100 different examples of the modest but culturally and aesthetically interesting objects that can be found in shops along Main’s 88 Blocks.
88 BLOCKS is a public art program for Main Street in Vancouver with three exhibitions. The exhibitions are launched in series over a multi-year period and offer changing artwork on three articulated trolleys servicing the #3 Main route, several temporary artwork installations and at least one permanent installation in each exhibition at various locations along the Main Street corridor. The first project for 88 Blocks was A Bright Future by Instant Coffee, the second project was Main Play by Germaine Koh and the third project is Memento by Gisele Amantea.
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Memento is a response to the material culture that contributes so strongly to the character of Main Street. Main Street is more typically characterized by the presence of a multitude of objects that tend to have a personal meaning and relate to everyday life rather than high-end consumption. The poodle was chosen as a motif for the sculpture and other artworks in Memento because it is expressive of the general surroundings of the street. The poodle is not associated with a particular culture, and can therefore be enjoyed by a wide range of people along the street and in the surrounding neighbourhoods. Untitled (Poodle) is intended as a curiosity that will bring attention to the sculpture as a marker or icon of time and place. The sculpture is based on and is a representation not of a living poodle, but rather of a porcelain figurine, the kind of object that might be found in any number of shops along Main Street.
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Photo Credit: Maureen Smith
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Mount Pleasant
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3333 Main Street
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Main and 18th Avenue
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Three Trolley buses; and Main & 18th Avenue - NW Corner
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Civic
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2012
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Sculpture is composed of aluminum; the platform & pole are steel. Elements are coated with Coraflon.
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Sculpture
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Existing
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City of Vancouver
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