Jordyn Stewart: Cul-de-sac Island

A cul-de-sac is a dead end street whose end is surrounded by houses. Confined within a curb, and a ubiquitous indicator of urban sprawl, they are continuously manicured by the municipality and left with little indication of its use to the public.

Sometimes, you'll find a landscape island in the centre of a cul-de-sac. While these islands may be seen as underutilized spaces, when activated by a child's imagination they have the potential to become much more, even a paradise.

Jordyn Stewart is intrigued by ways in which nature exists within the cityscape. Cul-de-sac Island explores nature, place, and identity through the juxtaposition of the artificial and the real. Grappling with her understanding of nature, as a child to adulthood, her most recent installation is informed by personal history, memory, and contemporary notions of 'nationhood.' Through performative action, play, amateur ethnography, and failure, the work serves as an ongoing investigation into the artist's personal sense of place and the place she calls home