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Step right up to Balancing Act, a new public artwork by Robin Arseneault to be installed at the front entrance of BLVD Beltline in 2024. Imagining a future within the redeveloped Victoria Park neighbourhood and the pedestrian-only festival street that connects with the Stampede grounds and new events centre, Balancing Act will fit right in as one more site for an imagined spectacle or show-stopping performance.
Balancing Act comprises three unicycles perched precariously atop rock-like formations that frame the front entrance of BLVD Beltline. The unicycles look to be handmade out of nailed timbers and whittled wood. They seem from another time long ago, no longer compatible with city life. The wheels are not round and, standing at 12 feet tall, the pedals are hardly within reach of one’s feet. Immediately we sense impending failure, a cartoon-like mishap is about to happen.
The three sculptures were built in wood and then cast in bronze, a material with a long history of commemorating and memorializing people, places, and events. Using bronze in this context turns a critical eye towards how a society judges and celebrates success. The parked cycles seem to be bogged down by their amorphous foundations. The unicycles are illogically optimistic; clearly stuck, yet ready to go.
The concept of a balancing act recalls a performer carefully walking across a circus tightrope, constantly adjusting for the swaying apparatus, in what feels like an insurmountable feat. A nervous audience watches on anticipating the impending success or failure. A balancing act is also that thing we do every day: balancing this responsibility with that one; trying to get this thing done while being expected to be doing that. Thankfully, more absurd than tragic, competing obligations leave us all metaphorically juggling from time-to-time, making us spectacles within our own lives.
Balancing Act will be Arseneault’s first public art commission in Calgary. The project is directed by Ellen Cunningham Art Consulting and Ciara McKeown at CMCK Public Art. BLVD Beltline is a premium rental property located in the heart of the Beltline neighbourhood (1229 Macleod Trail SE).