Tel-talk












art interventions in telephone booths (2012)

www.tel-talk.blogspot.ca

"Nothing says "end of an era" quite like the lowly phone booth - resonant of forgotten technologies, extinct social patterns, and an egalitarian time when communications were easily accessible to anyone with pocket change."                                                 - R.M. Vaughan, The Globe and Mail



A nine month series of interventions documented on the blog and culminating in a publication edited by Liis Toliao, Yvonne Koscielak and me (Tightrope Books, 2012) and an exhibition/party at Telephone Booth Gallery in Toronto. Participating artists and writers were Alison Fleming, Anthea Foyer and Rob King, Barry Callaghan, Cathi Bond, Charity Miskelly, Cleen, Don McLeod, Dyan Marie, Hal Niedzviecki, Hayley Isaacs and Hai Ho, Helena Grdadolnik, Hitoko Okada, kevin mcpherson eckoff, Jessica Westhead, John Sobol, Julie Voyce, Laura Peturson, Liis Toliao, Liz Worth, Lizz Aston, Maureen Lynett, Otino Corsano, Paola Poletto, Paul Hong, Ryan Bigge, Sharlene Rankin, Sheila Butler, Steven Tippin, Stuart Keeler, Tara Cooper and Terry O'Neill, TIMEANDDESIRE, WeSee Inc. The book features images of installations and site-specific stories, available through Tightrope Books, Art Metropole or Amazon. The installation on the cover is by Hayley Isaacs and Hai Ho - they brought the white cube to the street.




Lady Cleaner after Julie Voyce (2012) by Paola Poletto






This is an image of artist Julie Voyce cleaning a telephone booth at a gas station at Yonge and Highway 401. I asked her to clean the booth because it seemed both appropriate and odd to ask her to clean a booth for me for Tel-talk. The title. "lady-cleaner" came from a hand written ad I saw at the Lady York supermarket's job /info board on Dufferin Street. I liked how the words had been inverted, lady cleaner instead of cleaning lady. It reminded me how i am sometimes an artist and sometimes a coordinator, and constantly switching roles.