Drew Makepeace art from demolition project

Plastic curtain gable soon to be gone but not forgotten. [Photo Drew Makepeace 2006]


British Columbia, Canada - Super Valu Redux is an installation of photos and elements from the recent demolition of a supermarket in Penticton BC Canada by Drew Makepeace. The building sported compression-arched laminate beams on pin hinge buttresses with multicoloured translucent plastic gables. The installation includes four of the pin hinge supports.

The beams are stashed in a demo yard awaiting a new customer - 'They're looking a little scraped up, but they are for the most part intact.' [Photo Drew Makepeace 2006]

Part of Drew's statement: Now that SuperValu has been demolished physically, we can begin to deconstruct it aesthetically . . . SuperValu Redux comprises images from 2000 photos taken during demolition in March and April 2006. After taking it for granted as merely a place to buy groceries, we can now look back on it through photographs and appreciate what we failed to notice for the last 42 years: that it was a fine example of urban architecture married with aesthetic principles. The installation comprises pieces salvaged from demolition . . . and four massive metal brackets with stubs of the long wooden beams that once supported the wide curving roof. We can now see and touch these chunks of metal and wood, and admire them in visual isolation as well as through their texture and heft. Then, turning back to the photographs, the objects can be seen as they once were, in situ.

The exhibition Super Valu Redux is on from 10 June to 1 July at Leir House Cultural Centre 220 Manor Park Avenue, Penticton BC, V2A 2R2.

NOTE: Drew has compiled a handy tabular too when-to-use-an-apostrophe web page too.