One Wednesday afternoon, polka dots began to appear on the Academy Centre.
How did they get up there?
By Friday, the dots had made it from the wall to the walkway.
In play, the shortest distance between two points is rarely a straight line. We explore unconstrained by fear of embarrassment. We surrender learned inhibitions.
Polka Pox is a series of painted polka dots, distanced six feet apart. This work was created with cut vinyl under a layer of acrylic ink, to give the impression that the walkways themselves had been painted over. I hosted an open painting session for community members to come and paint their own dots, which were included in the final installation.
By introducing play to the mundane, I hope to disrupt routine. Walking through a pandemic-emptied campus, it’s easy to keep the head down, to dissolve in transit. Polka Pox seeks to be a reason to pause. I hope that members of the community take the opportunity to notice and appreciate other elements of their environment that they might have taken for granted— to see the old with new eyes.
Do you remember what it was like to be a child, meeting new friends at the playground? Installation in communal space suggests that this project can be experienced collectively. By sparking a moment of play, I hope that we can let our guards down during an increasingly rare moment of shared physical presence.
When we suspend self-importance, we are free to appreciate experiences as they can be, not how we think they should be. When we are free to wander, we encounter new places: destinations that can only be reached when we forgo straight lines.
JaQ Lai, 2020.