Abstract

This paper will present the results of an experiment in architecture, engineering, and art in the form of a month-long nomadic spectacle in mid-western Canada. Responding to the cultural, economic, and geographical boundaries that limit many rural and urban communities’ access to contemporary art, five artist run centers called for proposals to use a 1976 Airstream trailer to carry art performances, contemporary films, and art making workshops to several communities in Manitoba. The project presented in this paper describes how the ongoing material research by the author, exploring the architectural and cultural potentials of temporary structures, was used to create a unique venue for the presentation and participation of art through an inclusive community-based building event. In this project, design was not carried out by the architect alone, but by the community who was invited to help construct curving, flowing structures that bare little likeness to traditional architecture surrounding them. This paper will describe the value of the ephemeral within the perceived concreteness of the everyday, and how architecture and design are not just descriptors of a place, but a performative and communal act of place making through the temporary events that give rise to their form and meaning.