emptyful, by Vancouver artist Bill Pechet, is based on the shape of a container, over 10 meters high, and made of stainless steel, lights, water and fog. It was created as part of the Winnipeg Cultural Capital of Canada project and the Winnipeg Arts Council’s Public Art Program.
emptyful is inspired by the idea that Winnipeg, (and the prairies which surround it) is full of emptiness...a boundless space where various phenomena such as weather, light, seasons and human endeavour come and go. The recognizable shape implies containment, but the open construction allows for the opposite: light, wind, rain and snow flow through easily. Through the open vessel Winnipeg architecture is framed and highlighted. This shape also suggests an experiment, as a way to acknowledge that the city itself is a constant experiment, the product of imagination and knowledge.
emptyful includes light and water features as well. A rain curtain and fog during are part of the piece during the summer. Tthese water elements and the container itself are lit at night with colours which cool and calm the summer heat, shifting greens, blues, aquas, whites, with the occasional burst of a hot colour. The winter lighting settings are softly pulsing fire colours….orange, yellows, soft whites, ambers and reds to bring a warm contrast to the cold evenings.
emptyful remarks Bill Pechet
August 15th, 2012
I first came to Winnipeg as a young boy… not physically… but through photos I saw of my father’s family, who had settled here from eastern Europe.
The Winnipeg I encountered then was a place filled with people eating delicious pickles, and smoked goldeye, and walking on really windy streets wearing big furry coats and big furry hats…the city had a mythic status in our household because it was the origin of my father’s translation into an urban Canadian. He spoke both lovingly and critically of Winnipeg….something I notice everyone I meet here still does…and that is a good thing.
When I saw the place for myself, I could sense, through space and people, an old soul of a city, where even, within its apparent areas of vacancy, a fully robust culture was humming away…a place where people are thinking deeply about their city, through art and culture.
This gave birth to the idea that perhaps a piece of art could express this notion of a simultaneous empty and full environment where event comes and goes…. with as much force as weather itself.
Seeing life as a complex balance between full and empty was also embedded into the piece…. So, although this is a vessel which can hold things like water, fog , snow and light, it is also meant to read as a meditation on what is real or illusory in our lives. It is an allegory, I suppose for the human condition itself, which, as we all know, never just says static but constantly is in a state of evolving.
Ok, I know that the piece has its humorous side…has a mad scientist, per chance, taken over a major public space in the city to perform a chemical and social experiment ?????…maybe…but this is just a way in, a way to encourage everyone to look, and then enjoy, and then think. The big beaker has variously been read as other things too and I welcome any interpretation that comes by…a fellow told me it looked like a big mosquito zapper and said ‘right on!:
I am so happy that Winnipeg has embraced this work
…at its core, it is a love letter to a city which made part of my family…it is meant to activate and dazzle those who come upon it to enjoy the urban space of Winnipeg, throughout all seasons, and to add to all the marvelous emptiness and fullness which can be found in this special place.
This legacy project was commissioned as part of the Winnipeg Cultural Capital of Canada designation, with participation from the Government of Canada.
