Centennial

Calgary Stampede / BMO Centre Art Collection · 2024
Acrylic, resin / wall sculpture
Permanent collection, BMO Centre, Calgary

Commissioned by the Calgary Stampede for the permanent art collection in the newly expanded BMO Centre, 'Centennial' translates temperature data from July 2012—the Stampede’s Centennial year—into an exuberant celebration of memory, place and spectacle.

Some of my strongest memories of the Calgary Stampede are sensory: the neon lights of the midway, the smell of mini doughnuts, the sounds of carnival games, enormous stuffed prizes passing through the crowd, and fireworks marking the end of the night.

For this piece, temperature data was abstracted into the organic forms that recur throughout my practice and composed to suggest several large bursts of fireworks. Colour, reflection and overlapping shapes create a sense of movement and celebration, while the underlying dataset quietly anchors the work to a specific moment in Stampede history.

Rather than functioning as a literal visualization of the Centennial weather, the data becomes a framework through which personal and collective memory can be explored.

'Centennial' is part of the Calgary Stampede’s BMO Centre art collection, a major investment in the work of living Alberta artists. The collection brings contemporary art into the architecture of the expanded convention centre, connecting the building to the artists, landscapes and stories of the region.