McIntosh Gallery presents Kyla Brown: Lines of Desire: Community Mapping in Woodfield

July 18 to 25, 2012
Opening reception: Wednesday, July 18 from 5:00 to 7:00 P.M.
London Co-op Store, 621 Princess Avenue, London, Ontario.

McIntosh Gallery, in collaboration with Western's Department of Visual Arts and London Co-op Store, is pleased to present Kyla Brown: Lines of Desire: Community Mapping in Woodfield. As McIntosh's 2012 Artist in the Community, Brown, a graduate student at Western's Department of Visual Arts who recently moved to London from Toronto, poses the question: What are the places and routes that make London unique to the people who live here?

Since spring, Brown has asked Londoners attending community events to draw their personal routes through the city and, specifically, the historic downtown district of Woodfield. Brown then combined them all into one map that resembles a jigsaw puzzle of abstracted shapes. She then used these shapes to cast coloured wax sculptures.

According to the artist: "Travel in and around a city is crucial to getting to know it. My experience has made me think about who the city is for and how the placement and pathways direct and authorize specific journeys. I am particularly interested in 'desire lines': the direct routes that people take, often on foot, from one place to another in a way that is collectively useful, rather than prescribed."

Based on the concept of the Situationist dérive, Brown's accumulated cartography rendered in a tangible, three-dimensional form engages the project's participants and audiences to consider routes that are actively embedded within the community but not yet mapped.

Kyla Brown: Lines of Desire: Community Mapping in Woodfield is on display from July 18th to 25th at the London Co-op Store, a non-profit, member-owned health food store located at 621 Princess Avenue.

For more information, contact James Patten at jpatten2@uwo.ca or (519) 661-2111 ext. 84602