If It's Still There When You're Looking

Luiza Benisano
If It’s Still There When You Go Looking
Art 343

If It’s Still There When You Go Looking was created by Clint Sleeper. His work for this installation consisted of do-it-yourself benches and swings that can be installed in billboards or anywhere really for that matter. His website explains the inspiration behind the piece:

“The project is intended to engage with spaces and to find, make, or adapt spaces that might be sites for generosity and criticality. The book reflects my time in Vancouver and a practice of re-imagining city spaces, in a way a series of questions asked both in the texts and through the objects. The benches and swings might be gifts given to neighborhoods, and just as likely they are more biting critical gestures, which serve to detour billboards, advertising spaces, and anywhere with a bit of a view.”

With that said, I feel that his work was an answer to things that somehow vandalize beautiful things. I think the intention of putting benches and swings on random things make it stand out, which goes the same way for things such as billboards and signage. In his website, his says that he is from Vancouver. Vancouver is a beautiful place full of nature and green and I think the advertisements is a metaphor to the swings and benches.

According to his website, his work reminds him of his time in Vancouver and a practice of re-imagining spaces. The swings and benches can be interpreted to being of use to people who find it. It can serve as a gift and it can also serve as a nuisance similar to the advertisements that are bombarded in beautiful sceneries. The title of the work could also be interpreted to how long the objects actually stay in where they are at. Or if people somehow put them to use.