12.05.2019 | 12.14.2019 
INTO THE STREETS PUBLIC ART SERIES | THE DEEP DARK

The Deep Dark is a light installation designed to illuminate the interspaces between our sacred (and natural) environments and cultural constructs of darkness. Using domestic doorways as an entry point, viewers are invited to move through this “ghost architecture,” and as they do, they are blinded by intense white light, aimed inward from each frame. The human eye is overexposed, and the darkness beyond is magnified, much darker than before. From an outside perspective, as viewers pass through each doorway, they are seen as a bright figure that disappears suddenly into the darkness.

The Deep Dark will be installed in the dark parkland just outside the gates of Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden, to encourage visitors to experience moving between extreme light and darkness among the trees, in juxtaposition to the brightly coloured and manicured environment of the Winter Light Festival. 

Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett work with diverse media and materials, ranging from artificial light to re-appropriated urban objects, typically presented in multiple. Their practice combines divergent aesthetic and industrial backgrounds, often resulting in transformative public sculptures and installations. Beckoning viewers with interactive contexts and novel materials, their projects invite strangers to share in experiential moments, prompting collaborative viewership. Using mass-produced objects as a reference to cities as an immeasurable quantity of materials, people, and situations, Brown & Garrett’s practice evokes the possibility of renewed understanding through a critical shift in perspective.

Into the Streets is organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and guest-curated by Jane Edmundson and Tyler Stewart. Funding assistance is provided by the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the City of Lethbridge, and the City of Lethbridge Public Art Small Projects Program.

Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett, The Deep Dark, installation view, 2019. Courtesy of the Southern Alberta Art Gallery.