Artropolis 1993 sous-fonds

Sous-fonds consists of records relating to the planning, administrative, fundraising, and promotional activities of the A.T. Eight Artropolis Society for the Artropolis 93 exhibition.

Sous-fonds is arranged into the following series:

1. Administration and exhibition series (6-3.1)
2. Curatorial series (6-3.2)
3. Fundraising and publicity series (6-3.3)
4. Printed matter series (6-3.4)
5. Special event seres (6-3.5)
6. Volunteer series (6-3.6)

The third Artropolis exhibition, entitled Artropolis 93: Public Art & Art About Public Issues, was held from October 22 to November 20, 1993 at 101 West Hastings, the old Woodward's Building. Approximately 32,000 people attended the multi-media show, which featured over 245 artists in 70,000 square feet of exhibition space. Other spaces used for the exhibition included Gastown alleys, the south end of the Burrard Street Bridge, the Stanley Park Seawall, the 500 block of West Pender, local radio and television stations (for audio and video art segments), the Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre campus, and the Vancouver Public Library (for the public programming series).

Artropolis 93's objectives were: to promote discussion about public art and public issues through the exhibition, its promotional materials and special events; to make the exhibition comprehensible to a wide audience; to provide a forum for BC artists from diverse backgrounds; and to facilitate access to the exhibition to school age children through classroom visits, on site workshops and distribution of educational kits. Approximately half the participating artists were selected in open competition, and the other half by six curators. The exhibition divided into six subsections: "Art about Public Issues", work in any medium relating to public issues, such as gender, race, language, ethnicity, environment, politics, economics, society, family, and sexual orientation; "The Unbuilt Public Environment", pertaining to unrealized temporary or permanent public art projects, monuments, or architecture which explored elemental existence or natural elements; "Temporary Outdoor Public Artworks", consisting of site-specific installations with natural materials; "Bridgeworks", consisting of temporary public artworks for bridges and alleys, as well as art in any medium which explored connections suggested by physical or metaphysical bridges; "Living Art" works expressing the interdependence of artists' lives and art, with references to natural or urban surroundings, and living and working spaces; and "Home/Identity/Hybridity", works addressing the definition and claiming of "Home" in the public and private realm, the construction of "Identity" within heterogeneous society, and the issue of "Hybridity" within a multicultural society.

The A.T. Eight Artropolis Society personnel consisted of a board of directors, an advisory board, curators and exhibition staff, including a community liaison, an exhibition manual and desktop publishing co-ordinator, a publicist, and curatorial, volunteer, and special events co-ordinators, as well as volunteers.