Melany Nugent-Noble Explores the Poetics of Connection with Participatory Artwork

Posted on | Updated
When it is necessary to stand still aims to draw people out of their routines, create curiosity about community and elevate the mundane.
A small, angular beacon rests in your hand. As you move through your city, it changes colour. You know that as it does so, it鈥檚 telling you something. Because there are other beacons out there, in hands a lot like yours.
Growing dimmer means you鈥檝e gotten further away from those other beacons. Colours change depending on how many others are nearby. A brighter gleam shows you鈥檙e getting closer to one another. When all gathered together in one place, the beacons will glow bright white.
For artist (MFA 2015), bringing this dreamlike scene to life has been the work of years. And as , the project will finally find a public audience; beginning at the end of August, Melany鈥檚 latest participatory artwork, When it is necessary to stand still, will see 25 beacons distributed to participants in the lakeside city for ten separate three-day 鈥渁ctivations.鈥
Once in possession of a beacon, participants will interact with the object as they please. Wandering around Kelowna, they鈥檒l find their beacon glowing or dimming as they grow nearer or more distant from fellow participants. Melany says the extraordinary openness of this proposition fosters a kind of intimacy between a person and their beacon, and between beacon-holders.
鈥淚n a way it's a really simple project: these beacons change colour,鈥 she says. 鈥淏ut in my experience, people really emotionally connect with them. Then there鈥檚 community engagement and community capacity building. So, it works on the level of the individual, the level of community, and then possibly on an interpersonal level.鈥
"The context allows people to step out of their routine ... They鈥檙e given permission for some sort of agency."
Melany鈥檚 hedging on any definitive claim that participation guarantees one-on-one interactions stems from her acknowledgment that 鈥減eople may just want to engage with it as a lamp.鈥 And for her, giving participants agency to engage or disengage is part of the premise.
鈥淩eally, it's a conceptual game. People are carrying these beacons around. Even the shape of them, they're like game pieces,鈥 she says. 鈥淏ut also, the context allows people to step out of their routine, gives them agency to look beyond their typical boundaries, and maybe do things or talk to someone who鈥檚 in the game, which they may not necessarily do in their day-to-day. They鈥檙e given permission for some sort of agency.鈥
The work began during Melany鈥檚 MFA studies at Emily Carr University, where she says 麻豆视频 associate professor Justin Langlois was key in helping her develop the project. Its earliest iterations were conducted as a research project called . But the upcoming activation as part of Kelo