Public Artwork

Grand Parade, Halifax

William Johnson & Matt Robinson, Grand Parade, Halifax, 2009
Location:
Grand Parade, Halifax, NS, Canada
Artwork creator(s): 
Johnson, William; Robinson, Matt
Text author(s): 
Robinson, Matt
Installation year: 
2009
Remarks on location: 

On a traffic control box

Description: 

A traffic control box is painted in muted, watery colours, like age-old slate, with faded images of ships and skylines.

Text of the artwork: 

- ‘the square is the only major shape that is man-made’

 

a pause, of sorts.             a rupture

in the stolid brick

& concrete rote

that is the city’s downtown counting;

our stepped caesura.

 

 

            it has been here we have been

here for the tumult & explosion

of the core, its people.

            a frenetic foreign chaos of

debris.             we

 

 

have been right here

& shuffled the icy restlessness

of near-zeroed november

mornings & mindless kicked at

what’s been cobbled,

 

 

together.               we have,

i’m sure, been here just

some of us a slight

bit drunk.             loose shouldered &

slack jawed, searching

 

 

the night’s unsteady dark for

a fight, for a bite of salty meat or slice

of pizza.               we have been here,

however briefly,

on the way: up, or down,

 

 

or over.                we have been here;

we have been.                 

            we have, at very least,

just this: a near accidental architecture

of moments; a shape of who we are.

Text theme: 
The poem subtly references the city’s significant historical events and future possibilities, its geography and ever-changing population.
Note(s): 

The painted traffic box is part of an HRM-wide project. Poet Matthew Robinson was contacted by Heather MacLeod, who works for the city’s Community Relations & Cultural Affairs department, to work on a site-specific poem for Grand Parade.

"From that point on I started to do a little research on the Grand Parade—after Heather explained the particular traffic box that she had in mind—and eventually came up with the poem we ended up using,” says Robinson. He says the poem isn’t exactly commemorative, but “something that was accessible and interesting; something that would be rather easily associated with the city and its people. I hope the poem does that in a reasonable way."

 

Sue Carter Flinn. (2009). Matt Robinson gets poetic in Grand Parade. The Coast, (august 14)

<http://www.thecoast.ca/ArtAttack/archives/2009/08/14/matt-robinsons-gets-poetic-in-grand-parade>

Propriétaire(s): 
City of Halifax
Document(s): 

Matt Robinson gets poetric in Grand Parade

Carter Flinn, Sue (2009).  Matt Robinson gets poetric in Grand Parade. <http://www.thecoast.ca/ArtAttack/archives/2009/08/14/matt-robinsons-gets-poetic-in-grand-parade>The Coast. (August 14)August 14 : The Coast