The Bentway’s Production Manager, Stephanie Dudek, met with her lead producers, Ben Freedman and Jeremy Forsyth, to recall the thrills and complexities of managing 8,000 concrete blocks, 300 volunteers, and a sculpture over 2.5km in length!
Steph (SD): I have been managing the Bentway’s production team for over six years and was thrilled to bring you both on as producers. To start, can each of you share a bit more about the journeys your careers took to bring you to The Bentway.
Jeremy (JF): I’ve worked in many different non-profits for 10 years now in Toronto, which is crazy to think about. Back in 2017-2018 I joined The Bentway team to help set up the skate trail for the very first time. I had worked with you [Steph] at the Expo for Design Innovation & Technology, so that’s how our working relationship began. I remember putting together warming igloos and unpacking supplies, gosh it was cold that winter! -40 Polar Vortex! Our poor fingers.
My first job in the arts world here was as a volunteer manager at TIFF, and that was a really great introduction into the city’s arts and cultural organizations, particularly in the volunteer program because you get to meet people from all over. It was really inspiring to see this group of people who are so active in volunteerism – you’ll see the same faces giving their time to so many different arts organizations. So it was kind of a full circle moment to work manage the volunteer program for Dominoes. It felt a bit like a vacation working with volunteers!
Ben (BF): I’m a practicing artist and have always worked in and around the arts for my own personal work, but found my way into arts organizations working in project management roles. I was drawn to opportunities where I could directly communicate with audiences in public spaces and break down the gallery walls that sometimes can feel impenetrable between art and the public.
A few years ago I was working at CONTACT Photography Festival and was introduced to The Bentway working on our Co-commissions Forest of Canoes by Diana Klaxton, and then met you [Steph] working on Play Public by Thomas Mailaender and Erik Kessels. I left CONTACT to pursue a master’s degree at ECAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne) in Switzerland, and once I graduated came back and reconnected with Ilana. It was good timing, an opportunity came up here at The Bentway around that time and I was excited to go beyond the 2-dimensional world of photography and jump into projects that occupy public space in different ways. I like having this balance in my life sort of both serving and creating.
SD: Public art projects at The Bentway often involve creative risk-taking, and it’s the diverse backgrounds that enable us to pull off ambitious, envelope-pushing projects like Dominoes. What elements of Dominoes did each of you help lead?
JF: I worked to recruit, train, deploy, and celebrate all the volunteers on this project.
BF: And I worked on all things blocks related, sourcing and deploying the 8,000 individual concrete blocks along the route . And “other duties as assigned”.
SD: Yes – just saying Volunteers and Blocks really doesn’t cover it does it. We’ll get into the Volunteer process in a bit, but organizing the the logistics of the blocks was such a massive undertaking. Sourcing a building material that isn’t widely used in North America, dealing with the shipment across borders, calculating how many blocks would be needed in each section of the route, splitting them all up into the appropriate numbers of pallets, finding a place to drop all of those pallets, stage it all, and then wrap them all, and then send them out into the world and make sure every single palette is in the right place… it was a huge effort.
The materiality of the building blocks themselves was fascinating. Can you share more about where they came from and what they were made of? And how did this help on the day of the event as you deployed them to different sites in the neighborhood?
BF: Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) is a special type of concrete that has glass mixed into it and baked. Under high temperatures the glass vaporizes and that’s how all the little air bubbles are formed within it which makes it so light and buoyant. They’re essentially baked in massive blocks and then cut to standard sizes, almost like a loaf of bread.
The thing is, these blocks are not widely used here. In the UK (where the artist are from) you can just go to essentially any building supply store and get these things, but on this side of the Atlantic it wasn’t like that. AAC isn’t used here the same way.
Originally, we had started experimenting with other kinds of materials. And beyond the accessibility of the material here the are also environmental concerns when you’re working with concrete. So we started branching out to more experimental kinds of materials, stone, recycled plastics, mycelium blocks…
The artist team was supportive in our experimentation but stone was too heavy to move, the company that pressed recycled plastic into bricks couldn’t work at this scale, and the mycelium blocks just weren’t as clean looking and disintegrated somewhat when exposed to water which was too risky.
So after a couple months of experimentation, we came to realize that, yes, we do need to work with this AAC, and managed to find a supplier this side of the pond that was able to do it. I think the artist team always knew we were going to end up back with these blocks. There are just so many things about it that work. The sound they make as they fall, their density and weight, the fact that they float!
Like any production, and particularly with the kinds of projects that we do at the Bentway, it’s all the roads you go down, from a materiality perspective, that help inform the final product (and increase our knowledge base as producers for future works). It’s worthwhile taking the time to explore; make sure we were doing our due diligence so we can confidently answer – yes – this IS the best thing for this project and here are all the reasons why. That’s a big part of our role in production – choosing the right materials, striking a balance between what is good for the overall vision of the project, good for the environment, good for logistics and the realities of install, that’s what it’s all about.
SD: Totally, and despite this not being a common building material here we were really proud to create a sustainable after life for the blocks. Can you tell us more about where they ended up and how you were able to find a home for them?
BF: Oh yes and we went through a number of different afterlife scenarios – where we had found homes for them, but then they had to back out, so we kept searching, and finally though our friends at Viking Recycling we managed to find someone in Quebec who wanted them on their farm.
SD: Dominoes was a true act of co-creation, with volunteers at the heart of the project. How did we find them and what sorts of people raised their hand to participate? Do you have any special memories or volunteer moments?
JF: It started with a volunteer fair at the Harbourfront Centre, where we got about 40 people register. But really, the bulk of it was the comms team putting this out there. We shot that test of the blocks on site in November of the previous year and used that to create a video to generate a bit of buzz. The people who signed up are all folks who in one way or another were already following the Bentway and interested in what we’re doing. More than that thought these people were willing to take that extra step and get involved in building something with us.
We made the decision to call every person individually and take the time to talk to them, and I want to shout out all the Bentway staff who helped in this effort. The feedback from the staff was great. I feel like we all just appreciated taking like the like half an hour out of the day, even if sometimes we didn’t really have the time to do it. But I heard from so many people when you talk to the volunteers and you get be excited about the project and hear that reflected back, it reminded you why we’re doing what we’re doing.
This process of calling everyone helped us build relationships with these people and hear about their stories. For example, Avery, who was the kid who kicked off the event by knocking over the first domino – we chose him because when I was interviewing his mum over the phone, she told us all about him and asked if she could being him along because he’s just OBSESSED with dominoes – building them all over their house.
Or another story of one person who applied to be a volunteer who ended up being one of the section managers. She was going through cancer treatment but she was so passionate about the project and volunteering . I just remember she had tears in her eyes at teh volunteer party and saying that this made all the difference for her in the last few months, it was wonderful to have this to look forward to.
Just goes to show you don’t know why people are volunteering. And it’s stories like this that we got to learn about because we took the time to get to know people, and through them, the city and the community that brings it to life.
SD: After months of planning, we had a very narrow window of time to put the final pieces in place. I know you both felt immense pressure to get it right. What did it feel like as the moment drew closer, and where were you both during the “big fall”?
JF: I was at Staging Grounds for The Fall, and I remember watching the blocks fall past me and turning to look at the crowd and they were all surging towards me to follow the fall! I had to hold my hands up and said “WHOAH!” And gratefully, they all stopped and agreed to look out for one another and continue on safely.
BF: I was running up Bathurst bridge with the last pallet of blocks because The Fall had already started and there was a gap in the line! There were three of us (shout out to our all-star build team) hauling an extremely heavy pallet and we made it in time. After that, I felt all the energy flow out of my body and gratefully handed things over to Federico to oversee the cleanup.
SD: Why do you think this project resonated with so many people?
BF: Dominos as a project is such a simple idea. Of course – incredibly complicated logistically to pull it off, but really – it’s about the effect of one thing -> impacting another thing -> impacting another thing -> impacting another thing. The Dominoes were a symbol for the way that we create personal relationships. How we reached out to every one of the volunteers, then they went out to meet one another and have an impact on each other’s lives, and together, we created the whole event as a team.
It was a heartfelt, playful way to bring the community together and realize how we as an arts organization can develop personal connections with people, be a part of their life and meet them where they’re at – in their neighborhood.
JF: Yeah and the energy was incredible. I’ve never experienced walk up Volunteers before but we had probably 7-8 people who just saw what was going on and wanted to help. We had a family who was in Toronto visiting from China all jump on board. Tourists as Volunteers! That’s a first for me.
SD: What has it meant for each of you working on a project like this? What were the most rewarding aspects of your experiences, and what do you want people to understand about working at this scale?
BF: I think I’d want them to know that it takes a lot of work to make it look easy! I think I learned, or found, a sense of confidence that I didn’t have before. It’s such an immense project and I’m not going to lie, I really wondered how we were going to pull it off. Not only did we pull it off, but with flying colours! I’m very proud of the work that we did and it made me realize just how capable we are. We can do difficult things and we learned a ton from it that we can apply to other ambitious projects when they come across our desks.
JF: I’d want to shout out all of the people that helped us make this happen. Our stellar build assistants Layne Hinton, Stacey Feldman, Pavneet Pal Singh, Cam Kirk, Tyler Davidson,
Christine Dewanker. Our vendors too, it’s like. When you’re on the phone with someone explaining what you’re trying to do and they don’t just like, straight up hang up on you, they’re excited about the opportunity that’s when you know you’ve found the right people to bring into the project with you.
I’d also especially give a shout out programming team. They really saw the vision for this project. We’re often so focused in Production on the nuts and bolts, the checklists and spreadsheets and schedules, this project taught me that you have to get out of the weeds and put your head in the clouds a little. Programming knew what this project was going to be, they saw how it really embodied the Bentway mission of connection and I really respect their work in bringing this to Toronto.
