Community Art Installation at AtOrigin Coffee
About Our Project: Love From a Distance
Female artists Natalie Plociennik and Mehtap Mertdogan partnered with At Origin Coffee to create a storefront installation to serve as a symbol of strength, equality, kindness and a way to create community through art. The installation represents real people in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, as the cafe regulars submitted their photos to be used as references for the portraits. The resulting artwork displays everyone looking out for one another within their social circles.
The artists displayed a letter to the community by the installation that read:
“This pandemic has made us aware of how important your support, kindness and love has been. As artists and small businesses, it gives us the strength and resilience to continue working during this pandemic.
Thank you to the Mt Pleasant Village for providing your portrait photographs to represent you in the installation, we wish we could include everyone in the paintings!”
-Mehtap Mertdogan & Natalie Plociennik
Connecting the community from a distance through art, the message of the installation is to stay strong, considerate and kind to our community despite our social circle boundaries.
Artworks - Acrylic on wood, 3” & 4 “ diameters
Afterwards, a mosaic artwork titled “Stickin’ it Out” was made out of the pieces that did not find a home. It was exhibited at Scarborough Arts in 2021 in the exhibition “Beloved Community”. The piece takes meaning from the Love From a Distance project, and also develops a new one. Portraits frozen in cement act as a metaphor for the pause we are experiencing during the lockdown. Regardless of the binding, we can still send love to each other, we must “stick it out”.
