From Henk Hofstra, “In April 2007, het Moleneind, a road in Drachten, The Netherlands, is painted blue to symbolise the water. It is 1000 meters long and 8 meters wide. It was created to form an urban river and recreate the path of a waterway that used to be where the road currently runs. They will start to dig a new canal here in 2008. The text WATER IS LEVEN is written on the blue road. The water will bring back life again in the centre of Drachten.”
I would love to see this done at Turcot bringing the Riviere Saint Pierre back to life, if only symbolically, for a little while. Anyone interested in this kind of idea should email me at neathatturcot@yahoo.ca
And here is a bonus image for those who like the potential of art on ground level. More here.
How is it that European cities are always endorsing these grand scale, infrastructure-disrupting conceptual art schemes, while the best Montreal can manage is a jailed stencil artist, and this:
Er, this:
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2157/mooseu.jpg
I would absolutely love to do something like this in Montreal. Do you have any more takers?
I’m always ready for projects such as this.
I suggest contacting the people at Signé Turcot… They would also likely be interested.
http://signeturcot.blogspot.com/
I find it surprising in that Drachten project that they didn’t think to plant the shrubby patch between the painted pavement with some vigorous blue flowers. Something like that might also work at Turcot if there’s any exposed soil.
Thanks, Jody, I will contact them.
Photoshopped.
This is such a good idea. The Dutch and the Swede’s always have such a creative twist on things. I would love to participate in a project like this.
No, not photoshopped. See the cloes-ups on my weblog:
http://eamelje.net/2007/04/05/wegdek/
Meanwhile, the painted road is still there, be it a lot paler and scruffier. The work on the canal that was going to replace the road was stopped, or put on hold.