Touch Traces is a temporary public art project in East Village led by Cassie Suche in collaboration with Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC). The installation is created using hundreds of fingerprints sourced from the East Village community.
The project is part of CMLC’s Art in the Public Realm Program, which creates opportunities for both permanent and temporary work in the neighbourhood of East Village in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
MATERIAL AS INSPIRATION
The concept for this project began with consideration for the installation method and material. The site for the artwork is outdoors, next to a heavily trafficked pedestrian and cycling pathway. The ten surfaces included in the site are subject to a high degree of human intervention and elemental exposure. Printed vinyl was selected as the most suitable material to the space because of its durability, as well as it’s creative potential.
Because the surface material would be digitally printed, this project presented an opportunity for a concept that highlights a digital methodology. The artwork would be able to combine physical tactility and digital process.
FINGERPRINTS
Direct and meaningful engagement was a priority in this project. The objective was to allow the community to participate in the process and to see themselves reflected back in the final artwork. Because the final work would be abstract, this was an especially interesting challenge.
The final concept was chosen after a period of methodical exploration of many kinds of participatory processes. A variety of ideas for engagement were explored in tandem with various digital processes until one idea emerged as being especially captivating. The concept would use community fingerprints.
Fingerprints were initially of interest because of their aesthetic. They are incredibly intricate organic patterns that are visually compelling as singular marks. Fingerprints also serve as symbols for a way that humans connect with their surroundings and with one another. They have a duality of being so universal, but also notably unique. They are residual, common marks which are everywhere, and yet they are also very private.
PARTICIPATION
With the support of CMLC, the East village community was invited to contribute fingerprints to the project. Fingerprint collection took place throughout the month of April 2022 both in-person and using independent participation boards.
Many East village organizations kindly allowed this project into their space including Kidko, Carya Family Services, CMLC, Arris, First, Evolution, N3, Calgary Drop In, Charbar Group, Alt Hotel and Parlour Ice Cream. East Village’s EAST team helped to support fingerprint collection along RiverWalk near the installation site.
The initial goal was to collect between two and three hundred fingerprints, and by the end of April the community had contributed around 640.
PROCESS
With this incredible level of contribution, the transformation into finished artwork began.
The process started with carefully documenting each of the prints. Then, prints are individually selected and printed again on a new sheet of paper, scaled up to about the size of a palm. These large versions of the prints are then documented with a flatbed scanner, but as the scanner moves horizontally along the glass, the paper is pulled, twisted and lifted along with the scanner. The resulting imagery is an elongated linear rendition of the fingerprint. The same technique is done using groups of fingerprints that have been carefully digitally arranged.
The dreamy, flowing imagery this process generates mirrors the river which sits adjacent to the installation, which reenforces the works connection to the site.
Because the scanner is not intended the be used this way, the resulting imagery often includes vertical lines, skips, and bands of colour. Some of these errors have been selectively kept in the work in order to show all aspects of the process.
The imagery produced using this technique is unpredictable, and so this process was repeated thousands of times. The final series of artwork is curated from thousands of images. The distorted prints have been softened, recoloured and sometimes inverted, but the the installation aims to honour this extensive experimental process.
INSTALLATION
The artwork was printed and installed by local company Big Print. Each piece is installed using a grid of 5’ x 5’ printed panels. The printed substrate was adhered to the concrete structures using a wheat paste mixture.
Following the installation of the printed material, the edges were painted to cover the entire surface of the structures.
PROJECT COMPLETION
The final series that is Touch Traces is made entirely from fingerprints contributed by east village residents and visitors. It’s a soft collision of physical touch and digital process that highlights the beauty of these marks and their significance.
Touch Traces was installed in June 2022 and will remain installed on a temporary term of 24-36 months. The work has been received by the community with joy and curiosity.
Thank you to Anna Lake of CMLC for the incredible level of support on this project and to everyone who participated in Touch Traces.
