FREE KINGSTON – YOU ARE HERE (A love letter to a city in whose heart I remain a tourist)
Free Kingston – You Are Here was a conceptual interactive project created for the 2007 Kingston Sculpture Biennial. Twelve wooden “you are here” arrows, painted red with the word ‘FREE’ carved out of them, allowing light to stream through, were placed around the city of Kingston indicating “free” activities, experiences or things. It offered an opportunity for the general populace to confront and question in public spaces both the definition and the implication of the familiar and loaded four letter word ‘FREE”. A companion map of the city with corresponding free activities was available at several locations and distributed randomly.
Within days of installing the signs, they began to disappear. On one occasion a bag of unwanted clothing was placed underneath one of the “FREE” arrows. Eventually all but a few signs were anonymously removed to exist freely from their original incarnation. The public was indeed interacting with and interpreting the signs!
