Toxic spills and street parties: Cultch's wild cardboard world feels like Home Sweet Home

by Janet Smith on June 10th, 2011 at 3:29 PM

1 of 1 2 of 1

There's been a toxic spill, an active volcano has just threatened to flood the city, and a fair has taken over one of the pedestrian streets: just another day in Valuable-Village.

That's the name of the wildly creative make-believe town, built from cardboard, sequins, feathers, and tissue paper. It's been evolving inside the Cultch all week as part of the Home Sweet Home show, a massive art and performance installation that allows everyone to pick their real estate, build their dream homes, and create happenings. It's the brainchild of the U.K.'s Subject to_change troupe.

And if you want to enter its weird and wonderful world, you have only until 8 p.m. tonight and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday (June 11) to check it out; the big "block party" is tomorrow from 4 to 6 p.m.

The visiting public has erected not just houses and the first megatower, but houseboats and even a pirate ship. Others have chosen to start up their own businesses; our favourite is Zombie Acres: Luxury Retirement Living for the Un-Living.

Providing the soundtrack for all the community's action: the live, on-site radio station “Residents FM".

As for that "toxic spill": it was actually the result of a child peeing on the massive canvas that the troupe has laid out for all this insane creativity. And a group of kids managed to save the village from that volcanic eruption by erecting cardboard barriers. The name of the town? It also was the suggestion of a small girl, and got voted on by village "residents" who were present at the theatre last night. (See more colourful details and images at the Cultch's ongoing blog.)

In other words, it has to be seen to be believed.

Comments

2 Comments

James G

Jun 11, 2011 at 1:05pm

I am always curious just how far away from reality those who run the VECC will go. It is too bad that this venue is wasted on trumpeting junk like a cardboard display that a child has urinated on as art. Does anyone resident on the East Side even enter the door of this increasingly irrelevant building? It could and should be headquarters for retaking this city in a relevant artistic cultural and artistic manner instead of the toilet it's directors have allowed it to become.

James G

Jun 11, 2011 at 10:56pm

Art is such a bitch. I can never figure out if it's good or not and what is good for me is junk to someone else. I might have commented to quickly on what I focused on as yet another hoity-toity nightmare that is all I ever see portrayed on the signboard of the Cultch every time I walk by. It was just too easy to focus on the cardboard display that a child had urinated on as an attraction. I am sure every back lane in my neighborhood has at least one piece of urinated-on cardboard. This project in concept is starting to grow on me (no, not in a fungal-like literal manner) and I just might check it out. Maybe it will even provoke a little more thought from there ...