ARTivist Profile: Vera Guo

Dear STEPS Enthusiasts,

Here is our first ARTivist Profile. We will be featuring a couple of ARTivists per month from across Canada, highlighting their work past, present and future. STEPS will soon have a database archiving all our ARTivists, so that you can search for people in your area, or working in a particular artistic medium.

Vera Guo of Darcy's Box

Vera conceived of Darcy’s Box, an art installation for the city of Cambridge’s Unsilent Night, as part of her Master’s project in the department of Architecture. The project has two aims: first, to challenge the ways in which people perceive building facades, to see them as potential canvasses for sustainable art in the form of light-projections, and, second, to create community spirit in the interactions and engagements with light-installations in public spaces. Where many urban city centres employ building facades as space for advertisements, Vera sees this as problematic and contributing to visual noise pollution, sensory overload and ultimately apathy. She thus advocates for collaboration between architects, artists and corporations to scale down gargantuan ads, and to employ methods that are environmentally sustainable and innovative to increase community spirit and enjoyment of public space.