Partnering for support
‘Toronto: Under This Ground,’ a 2013 series of subway station posters with photos by Michael Cook and Andrew Emond showcasing previously concealed waterway spaces.
Four By Eight’s involvement in supporting the festival dates back to 2008, when 3M’s Uzbalis brought the team on board.
“It’s also a pleasure to work with BDI, since they have the newest equipment and produce the best-quality prints,” Kotsopoulos says.
“Our partners help us continue to understand the cutting edge of wide-format graphics technology,” says Killeen. “There’s always a lot of back-and-forth discussion between our artists, sponsors, and suppliers.”
When American conceptual artist Barbara Kruger created a site-specific project for the Dundas Street façade of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in 2010, for example, it was the largest vinyl graphic installation in Toronto’s history at that point, stretching across an entire city block.
“It was a killer job at that angle, as the façade is not flat like a billboard,” says Kotsopoulos, referring to architect Frank Gehry’s new glass and wood façade, which was added to the AGO in 2008. “We had to combine a scissor lift with a zoom boom to work up there.”
While the company’s main focus is sign and graphic installation, relying primarily on Elliott Equipment cranes, it sometimes needs to turn to outsiders for specialized help.
“We oversaw the boulder graphics for Ryerson last year and this year and those are tough!” says Kotsopoulos. “Wrapping them is truly an art, even on their flattest sides. The vinyl is heat-applied, needs to retain its ‘memory’ just like vehicle graphics and is eventually removed. Fortunately, Jeff at 3M refers the right guys to us when needed. Everyone has their own little tricks.”
The festival has reached public spaces for the past 15 of its 22 years in existence, to the point where such applications have become a distinctive facet of the event’s overall identity.
For the 2018 festival, the five boulder wraps for the Ryerson Image Centre’s Devonian Pond were printed on 3M’s Envision 480, like the Bentway’s pillar wraps, and were part of Scott Benesiinaabandan’s ‘Newlandia’ series. This series also included 30.5-m (100-ft) long sidewalk graphics, printed on 3M’s Scotchcal 3662 film and then protected with Scotchcal 3647 overlaminate film.
Window graphics have also extended Contact’s reach. This year, 3M’s 40C-114, a clear, removable 0.08-mm (3-mil) thick vinyl film with a repositionable ‘comply’ adhesive, was used to bring Sofia Messa’s ‘Guardians’ photo series to the windows of the Allan Gardens Conservatory.
“They complemented other graphics and banners inside the building,” says Killeen.
Finding a way
Every once in a while, a notion for a public display simply cannot become reality, but never for lack of trying.
“Some ideas have not been feasible because a landlord pulls the plug,” says Killeen, “but in terms of the limits of the technology behind the production and installation of graphics, we and our partners have always found a way. It has been a very successful program and we are all proud of it.”
Indeed, one of his next orders of business is to find further ways to build on that success.
“We did everything we wanted to this year and we’ll be using many similar sites next year,” says Killeen. “We will start making those programming decisions this fall.”
With files from Four By Eight Sign Services, the Contact Photography Festival, and 3M Canada. For more, visit www.fourbyeightsigns.com, www.scotiabankcontactphoto.com, and www.3mcanada.ca.
