Thorsten Goldberg to create major artwork for Edmonton's North East Transit Garage
January 1, 2017
The art and artist for Edmonton’s North East Transit Garage are now revealed! Thorsten Goldberg, a Berlin-based multimedia artist with an extensive public art background, will create 53°30’N for the facility.
53°30’N is a collection of five topographic models depicting mountain landscapes from locations sitting on the same latitude (53°) as Edmonton. They will be cast in the scale of 1:1.000 and mounted upright on the facing sides of the lanterns on the roof of the North East Transit Garage building.
The models depict locations in five geographic areas: Mount Chown (Alberta), the crater of Mount Okmok (Umnak Island in the Aleutians), Zhupanovsky Crater (Kamchatka, Russia), an unnamed landscape near Dacaodianzi, Heilongjiang Sheng (China) and Mweelrea (Connaught, Ireland). The artistic concept is inspired by what the artist calls the “globe game”- placing your finger on a specific location and rotating the globe to see what other locations lie along a specific latitude.
We chatted with Thorsten Goldberg about this artwork, his art practice, and his thoughts on public art, place-making, and global connections.
Could you talk about the inspiration behind 53º30’N? Did you play the “globe game” when you were a child?
Oh, yes — I still play it today. But mostly digitally. I think we all do in our imagination. What does it look like in a different place… on the other side of the earth? What time is it somewhere else? What is life like somewhere else?
How else can you explain the fascination with Google Earth? To fly virtually over the earth, to look at landscapes from above or to see how it looks elsewhere in detail — this is the contemporary method of travel with your finger on a map which inspires our imagination: what if we were born in a different time, we lived in a different place, we had made a different decision?
Why did you choose mountains for this artwork as opposed to river valleys or other geographical features?
It seems to me more fitting, here at a place that is so great and wide, to place something heavy, large and massive atop the building.
Why these specific locations? Harbin, one of Edmonton’s “sister cities” is located in Heilongjiang, but other than that, how does Edmonton connect or relate to the Aleutian Islands, Kamchatka, Ireland, and Mount Chown?
Are there still places that do not connect to one another? These places even sit on a line. If Mount Chown remained still while the earth continued to rotate, then it would very quickly be in Edmonton.
What is your process for creating the sculptures? Could you walk the reader through from drawing board to final fabrication?
First, the mountain landscapes that are located on exactly the same latitude as Edmonton are reexamined: is the choice correct, does the gap fit? Then the Geo-data is collected in order to build digital models so that they fit on the façade of the North East Transit Garage. It also needs to be decided in which resolution and how abstract the landscapes will be later. From the digital data, five 1:1 (life-size) models are constructed as the template and form for the aluminum casting. This is quite a complicated process. Subsequently, the landscapes are mounted on the front sides of the lanterns. Every landscape is cast in 4 segments so that they are separated by a latitude and a longitude. This longitude is then written on the sides of the lanterns.
How did your visit to Edmonton influence your overall final concept? What was your overall impression of the city, and how do you envision 53º30’N adding to our landscape?
I knew Edmonton had approximately the same latitude as Berlin, so that I would ideally only always fly straight to the west to arrive. Very easy. But I had not imagined the dimensions and the wide landscape. Compared to Berlin, most things are somehow XL. Therefore, it seemed to me that the art must somehow be XL. It must therefore not be large in its dimensions, but it has to tell a story that includes this distance or the route.
Some viewers will question the inclusion of static, geographically themed artwork on a transit garage — how does the artwork fit within its site?
The North East Transit Garage is indeed right on the Yellowhead Highway, this important east-west link which contributed significantly to the settlement of the country. This artwork is not about a static, geographical subject, a single mountain, but instead is about the landscapes that lie on this east-west route. Where would we end up if we went straight on and on and never turned — that is the question. So it’s much more about movement and transport.
All the major east-west routes have a long tradition. Going West has not only always been a dream from a European perspective. And so the hopes and the pledge contained in this route are still felt today. I have extended this east-west route and coiled it once around the globe.
It was also inspirational to see the Canadian Pacific Railway, which is in sight of the NETG, where endless rows of large containers are transported.
Standardized containers with their large signs are emblematic of today’s global movement of goods. These containers on the train are very similar in their proportions to the lanterns lying on top the roof of the NET-garage. So I wanted to make the lanterns on top of the building more similar to the containers.
I do this by “detaching” them from the rest of the building. They get a different surface and on their sides, large texts are attached, which mark their origins and tell about the journey that they have traveled.
Also formally it seems to me that the elongated building is clearer and more forceful when the five lanterns are separated from the main structure. Then it is what it is: a large warehouse, a garage, on which some containers are stored.
What inspired you into a visual art career; can you share a few of the highlights?
I studied in southern Germany and gave myself a lot of time. I didn’t study sculpture straight away, but instead started with painting, then I switched to graphic design and only then switched to sculpture, while I financed my studies with, among others, photography and restoration. I believe these detours were very good for me. And with the fall of the wall I moved to Berlin. I received a photography stipend and had a good start in Berlin – the 90s were very exciting here.
What does your art practice encompass or explore?
I think it is much more exciting to deal with public space, rather than making art in galleries. The built environment, the normal course of life — everything flows into the work. It takes place at an interface between many changing things. And because each situation is different, it also needs various methods and materials. However, no place alone and detached from others can be seen. Places do not rest in a bowl or box. And that’s why it is the relationships or the paths between the places that I deal with. There is for example the Accurata Utopia Tabula, a fictional world map from the early 18th century. It bears witness to the wishes and promises of that time. I have worked a lot with the context for this map. There are other motifs of longing, like clouds, which recur again and again in my work or the simple idea of a world that revolves. And because it rotates, seemingly immutable things are themselves in motion and go on journeys.
Pink Occurrence, Laznia Centre of Contemporary Art — Gdansk, Poland
Some citizens argue that public art in Edmonton should only be made by Edmonton artists – in your view, why is it important to bring foreign artists into municipal public art collections?
Is that still possible today? Should one limit oneself to the resources that are in a location? That perhaps makes sense for vegetables, as in this case extensive transport often makes no sense — but thoughts, ideas, inventions should be able to travel the world. They do that anyway. How should one stop it? Is the exchange not enriching?
Many artists from all over the world are coming to Berlin at the moment. Many live here as long as it is attractive and cheap. It is an extremely creative center in which everyone must find a place. Just as they help shape the city, they would also of course like to earn money, get support, and exhibit. Should one limit this and only support original Berlin artists? No, certainly not!
What role can or should public art play in the day-to-day life of a city?
I hope that art — all art — took a much bigger place in life, particularly in education and schools. Yes, arithmetic and geography and history and sports are important, but it is art that pulls us to look at the world with different eyes and finally allows it to be understood at all.
Today we reduce our living much too much to our usefulness — we should change that urgently.
And an art that takes place in everyday life and in the public space can do so much: it can interpret space, it can create imaginary space, it can be place for communication, it can help viewers identify with the site, it can make the place unique, it can point to something, it can tell stories…
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