22-05-2025
Going Mobile: Weekend art exhibit, Idle Worship, motoring to a parking lot near you
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In 2022, a convoy of eight mobile galleries made its way to all four quadrants of Calgary as part of a somewhat mysterious art project called Idle Worship.
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Over two days in late September, the motorcade arrived unannounced in various parking lots across the city. Organizers didn't inform the media about the event beforehand, opting to keep it quiet to avoid having to ask for official permission to exhibit at the various sites. The art, meanwhile, was placed in box cars, hatchbacks and minivans as the convoy sat outside various businesses such as the defunct Lilydale chicken processing plant in Inglewood, IKEA, the A&W on 14th Street S.W., Crescent Heights Lookout, North Hill and Sunridge malls and the parking lot behind Blank Page Studios in Kensington.
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The subject matter was specific, although the art was varied. It was organized by renowned Calgary artists Caitlind r.c. Brown and Wayne Garrett, who are known for large-scale immersive public art projects, with a focus on Calgary's car-centric nature and its role as the hub of Canada's oil and gas economy.
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Call it a collection of pop-up galleries, or guerrilla art or — using the proper curatorial term — an art intervention. Whatever the case, Idle Worship certainly had the power to raise some eyebrows, particularly in a city where many are unconditionally supportive of the oil and gas industry and thin-skinned when it is even gently satirized.
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But Brown is happy to report that they faced no real hostility from passersby in 2022. It went so well, they are doing it again.
'I actually think that people are hungry for art in Calgary,' says Brown. 'As long as you don't call it public art, people are kind of receptive to it. Calgary is a pretty good city for art. It's just that you have to surprise people with it.'
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In 2022, Brown and Garrett built a 'shimmering, golden shrine' that flowed with used motor oil and placed it in the back of their 2001 Mazda MPV. Spectators were invited to kneel before it and pray. Other artists offered their interpretations of the theme.
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On Saturday and Sunday, the artists will use their Dodge Caravan to display their newest project for the second Idle Worship. This time, their 'art car' will be among 11 that will travel throughout the city. The times and places the caravan will visit was scheduled to be posted on the couple's website on Friday. At the time of this interview, Brown said the plan was to visit the parking lots of libraries, big-box stores, a scrapyard and other locales.
