Iris Walks

Iris Walks… Outfall #31, An Urban Watershed

Opening is Sept 20th at Laycock Park

As a part of the City of Calgary’s Laycock Park Restoration project, undertaken in conjunction with the Public Art Program and UEP, internationally renowned artist team Sans façon (Charles Blanc and Tristan Surtees) have developed permanent and temporary art projects for the park site. In collaboration with Sans façon, Iris Taylor has developed this self-guided walk around the subcatchment area of the main outfall in Laycock Park, a mini watershed.

Much of Iris’s previous research has reflected on the histories of an area and the relationships between people and place. She has presented a series of “historical guided walks” for various Canadian locations in the past. These previous walks have addressed little known, and perhaps unexpected, attributes of a site.  Through this opportunity with Sans façon, she is delighted to incorporate more issues pertaining to environmental concerns in the context of this walk.  It is impossible to separate the character and culture of any community from its relationship to the environment in which it exists (past, present, and future).

This is a variation on previous Iris Taylor walks, as it consists of a series of short, downloadable, 1 – 2 minute video vignettes showing Iris at various sites of interest along the walk route.  The number of each video correlates to a number shown on the map to indicate the locations where she will inform her audience of fascinating tidbits and attributes of each site.  This allows much greater flexibility for participants to undertake the walk at their convenience, rather than having it scheduled to take place live at a specific date and time. 

Ideally the walk would be undertaken as one continuous event if the participant has sufficient time.  However, as the entire walk is approximately 11 km, participants are welcome to walk portions of their choosing at different times.