This is much more important for me than where my next show will be, who is publishing my work, all of those kind of things. Part of the challenge, really, is to build some kind of holistic culture where people consider themselves all part of a community, and they put their energies together rather than being divided by professionalism. It s very important for me to acknowledge that even though I m working on so many projects, it isn t me alone in my studio. I m working in the community, putting together people in projects, some of whom have never worked on projects. Prototypes are always good in art, but it s the transferal from prototype to real life that is the challenge I think you re meeting.
Phoenix is a good example.
Remember that, in 1989, no architect would consider designing a waste facility. It took artists to change this. Some of them will be ridiculous and some of them will offer unthought-of possibilities. In 1989 it could probably have been thought of as ridiculous that a waste facility was a design opportunity, a place for the public, but this has now changed. John Grande is a Montreal-based writer on the arts who has contributed to Artforum, Sculpture, Art Papers, On Paper, The Structurist, Vie des Arts, Espace, and Canadian Art.