Prairie scenes like this one, with blooming fields of canola and flax outside of Yorkton,
will be among the sites for “Roadside Attractions” this summer. Photo Charles Melnick/ Tourism Saskatchewan.
“People in Saskatchewan are known for being modest and are often overlooked in national conversations around Canadian art,” says Jennifer Matotek, curator of “Roadside Attractions,” a public art project taking place in cities and towns across the province in the summer of 2018.
The artists involved—Ruth Cuthand, Babak Golkar, Justin Langlois, Divya Mehra, Kara Uzelman and Couzyn van Heuvelen, to name just a few—have been commissioned to do “outdoor public art pieces that respond to the geography, history or people of the place where their work is going to be situated.”
Many of the participating artists from regions across Canada have never worked in Saskatchewan before. As Matotek explains, “We invited artists from a range of practices whose works are political in ways that are relevant to the conversations that we’re having here now.”
An additional component of “Roadside Attractions” will be more than 20 hours of audio that includes interviews with artists, curators and local personalities, as well as music and sound art to animate road trips across the province.
“This is the sort of cultural event that takes advantage of Saskatchewan’s vast geography,” Matotek says of the project, “and, through contemporary art, introduces people to all of the places that make Saskatchewan special.”
This article is adapted from Site-Specific Regina | Saskatoon, a special section in the Spring 2018 issue of Canadian Art.
