Client: Presented by the Biennial of the Americas with artistic direction by Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum. Courtesy the artists and Black Cube

Overview

Social infrastructure meets water infrastructure in ‘Pipelines’

‘Pipelines’ is both a social infrastructure and a commentary on essential water circulation infrastructure. As a three-dimensional drawing in public space the installation prompts social interactions by offering an occupiable graphic lattice for visitors to Denver’s Plaza of the Americas. The vivid colours of the artwork come from the pipes themselves; the industry uses blue, green and pink to identify fresh water, sewage and grey water, respectively. We use them to recall the cyclical nature of resource management: supply, waste and recycling. The installation aims to make visible and prominent a system that is vital, yet often taken for granted or ignored – an attitude no longer possible in times of environmental crisis and resource scarcity. To minimize the sculpture’s environmental footprint and emphasize circularity, the pipes were returned to JM Eagle, the manufacturer that donated them, and processed back into new pipe at the end of the installation.

Goals

‘Pipelines’ continues Jamrozik and Kempster’s focus on creating what they call ‘social infrastructures’: artworks that bring people together and encourage them to interact with one another. They embrace the language of play as a tool for its ability to lower the inhibitions of adults while simultaneously welcoming children to engage with their work. They believe that questioning the way people use and occupy space while challenging their relationship to one another through playful encounters has enormous potential for speaking across generations, cultural barriers and political divides, offering sparks of curiosity and engagement, eliciting experience and stimulating memory.

Process

Presented by the Biennial of the Americas with Artistic Direction by Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum, ‘Pipelines’ was a temporary, outdoor, public art installation by Canadian artists Julia Jamrozik and Coryn Kempster. Opened in conjunction with the inaugural Cities Summit of the Americas, the art installation was designed and commissioned specifically for Denver’s Plaza of the Americas. ‘Pipelines’ was a playful, interactive artwork that repurposed over 100 PVC water and sewer pipes commonly used for water infrastructure.

Additional Information

Julia Jamrozik and Coryn Kempster are Toronto-based artists and educators who have collaborated since 2003. Together they create spaces and objects that interrupt everyday situations in critically engaging and playful ways. As a multi-disciplinary practice, they operate at a variety of scales, from temporary installations to permanent public artworks. Their practice focuses on ‘social infrastructures’ which seek to build community by fostering playful interactions in physical space. Their academic research focuses on the role of play in the built environment and alternative methods of documentation as a form of historic preservation. In 2021 their oral history and photography project “Growing up Modern’’ was published by Birkhäuser as a book with English and German editions. Their work is in the public art collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly Albright-Knox), Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts (CEPA Gallery) and the Cleveland Public Library. They have exhibited in galleries, produced temporary installations and realized permanent public artworks in Canada, USA, Germany, France, Italy and South Korea, including solo shows at Vtape in Toronto, the Weissenhofwerkstatt in Stuttgart and Gallery Kolektiv 318 in Marseille.