You channeled its moments

hyperallergic:

Will Munro’s design for “Instant Coffee 500” (2009)

This image was used as an interior bus ad card as a part of Instant Coffee’s “A Bright Future” 2009 project for 88 BLOCKS*Art on Main public art campaign in Vancouver. Instant Coffee is a Toronto/Vancouver based collective whose practice is often situated in installation, service, or event type projects, with an aim to bridge the gap between the studio and exhibition, challenging the nature of each. They describe “A Bright Future” (with added links) on their website:

As part of Instant Coffee’s self-proclaimed “Year of Bright Days,” they will exhibit A Bright Future, a four part public commission for 88 BLOCKS*Art on Main. Instant Coffee has a reclaimed aesthetic and a social intention that plays out over these four components: Blanket Bus: Soft and Warm, Instant Coffee 500; Say Nothing in Bright Colours; and Instant Coffee Light Bar Bus Shelter. All the components function as short moments of reprieve from as visual fields that are most typically reserved for advertising. Even though Instant Coffee often formally plays with the style of advertising it does so without a clear focused point of sale.

Bold colors and patterns were incorporated into each aspect of the project for the purpose of granting some levity to travelers’ bus commutes. Serendipitous winner of the vote among the 16 different submissions for this project, Munro’s knitted pattern of the placard matches the aesthetic of the Blanket Bus portion of the project, where public buses were wrapped with colorful knitted afghans in the place of advertising. The project strikes me as the next step after guerrilla knitting — institutionalized knittery in transit. The project in general is simply feel-good, but Munro’s text adds extra bite.