This story began more then 3 years ago during the period of Covid19 social and physical distancing. After months of isolation, the only safe places where my wife and I could meet our granddaughter was outside in open places like the Cherry Beach Park, Corktown Common Park or park around Brickworks in Toronto.

On one of those walks she found a piece of dry bark and asked me:
– “Grandpa, could you make something out of this?”
– “Yes.” I answered. “What would you like me to make for you?” – “A reindeer.”

And so a reindeer was born. Or should I say, re-born. As coincidence would have it, when my daughter was young I invented a bedtime story for her starring a reindeer, and not an ordinary reindeer, a green-haired one. Here is an excerpt from that story:

“In a country far away (or very close just around the corner) there was a reindeer living in a place where nobody liked him. People chased him away, nobody wanted his company. He wandered, pondering why until one day walking by a lake he noticed his reflection. The reindeer had green hair, hair like nobody else.
. . .
Under the surface of the lake, the reindeer noticed a beautiful underwater town. He dove down to get a better look. The people of the town looked just like him, but also nothing like him. Many had green hair and others hair of various colours. They greeted him with smiles and he felt happy and free.
. . .
Now ahead of them lay a task, to transfer that sense of mutual acceptance to others, above the lake’s surface. To explain to them that the right to be different is a basic human right.”
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• Proposal for DesignTO Project - PDF document
• Proposal for Brick Works Project - PDF document
• Proposal Therapeutic Art Installations - PDF document
We are considering our stories part of our art activities. Here they are, for now they are available on Serbian, original language they were written, but very soon you will find them translated on English.
• Originalna verzija price Zelenokosi Jelen - Srpski - PDF document
• Jos jedna prica - Covek Koji je Pravio Zmajeve - Srpski, PDF document
• Prica o crvenim vratima - Stiska Br. 15 - Srpski, PDF Document
• O rodjendanu - sa Tasmajdana- Srpski, PDF Document

This is how this project was started. Through the use of natural, recycled materials, I am creating minimal or no waste in the production of this artworks and honour the potential found in organic materials all around us. I am planning to continue making them in the future.

Toys vary in sizes between 20x15x10cm [~8x6x4in] for the largest to 8x6x5cm [~6x3x2in] for the smallest. Each is carrying singular perspective, equal, reciprocal and interconnected.

As Robin Wall Kimmerer, Indigenous person, distinguished professor of Environmental Botany, Director of the Center for Native People and the Environment, said: “It was trough the action of reciprocity, give and take with the land, that the original immigrant become indigenous. For all of us, becoming indigenous to the place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”

Primary interest for my previous work was analysis [psychogeography] of public urban built environment, the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from buildings to cities and beyond to contemporary urban ambiance, that I am calling “postmetropolis”.

Ambiance significantly changed in past 2 years to include adaptation to the changes caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and we are more and more relying on our personal inner space. We hope to find better practices and more sustainable ways of living life and fulfilling our needs.

I am thinking along the positive side stories of so-called eco-modernists more then ever needed in this challenging time.

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CONCLUSION:

Social and physical distancing, Covid19, Equity in public space, Sustainability, Reciprocity, Resilience, Climate Change, Social Equality, Environmental protection, Participation, Nature, Right to be different, Placemaking, Public Urban Art, Psychogeoography, Observation, Perception, Omen Urbis, Genius Loci, Urban Forest, Better Future, Anti-monumental Public Art, Creativity in all of us. . .