Artist: Dan Bergeron
Title: Support
Location: Teaching Kitchen Frit
McCain Complex Care and Recovery Building
1025 Queen St W. (West side of building – along Lower Ossington St.)
A chair is one of the most common structures in our built environment. Its purpose is to support the weight of users in a comfortable, upright position freeing them to focus on thought, food, conversation, rest or work. The design of the chair thus embodies both our need for outside support and the liberty that enables. Support explores that quality in the context of CAMH: it symbolizes both the support that CAMH provides for its clients and the ultimate goal of being able to support oneself.
When viewing the artwork from left to right, the viewer sees two horizontal chairs unfolding to reveal a single chair. This movement, from a vulnerable, horizontal position to a secure, vertical position, emulates the journey users of CAMH might experience through their recovery. Each step builds up to make a profound change toward rest and stability. The individual frames can also be understood as an unfolding or opening up of our emotions, as shelters that provide comfort and security, or as symbols of the masks that we wear to protect and guard us from the traumas of our past. Support employs the simplicity and profundity of the chair’s design to visualize the complex work undertaken by staff and users of CAMH.
