BY ANDREW SEMKOW
For two local artists, it’s about time.
Formerly located at the main entrance of Sheridan’s Trafalgar Campus, The Museum of Broken Watches, created by Rhonda Weepler and Trevor Mahovsky, was chosen this year for Nuit Blanche and put on display at Metro Hall in Toronto.
“Well we’re really excited because I know it was hard to get. There’s only a couple of curators that were having like, open call, so to get chosen was really exciting,” explained co-designer Weppler at last weekend’s event.
The Museum of Broken Watches is made up of 720 different watches, each set a minute apart. A light shines on each when it’s that time, making it function as a clock. The watches came from many different sources, some were donated, while others were found at Value Village and Goodwill.
Having the piece on display gave Weppler and Mahovsky a chance to go back and add news things, the case was made stationary instead of wall mounted, and after 15 minutes the display would go off and change to different colours.
With a new audience, the piece was well received with security having to line people up, to maintain control. The reaction was something that Mahovsky was looking forward to. “I wanted to see it in a different context, because at Sheridan people would walk by it every day and it would become part of the regular environment.”
An app was also created, designed by Richard Winchell. The app displays a broken watch with the correct time, and changes with each passing minute, a task that proved more difficult according to Trevor, as each watch required multiple photos, and each hand had to be changed manually.
After Nuit Blanche, Weppler and Mahovsky hope to create a high-resolution version of the app, and add to more crowd sourced watches to the piece. They’re also looking at turning the piece into a screen saver.