"Device To Root Out Evil"

We held our weekly small group discussion in the courtyard where this church is planted. Here are some words and phrases that came to mind as we engaged with this structure:

*Transparent
*Tumbled out of the sky
*Different perspectives
*You can see high-rises from each angle except when you're looking out on the harbour
*The cross is buried in the ground
*It is anchored
*Non-traditional
*Made with purpose/intent
*Inaccessible

We walked away from it with the sense that if the church is going to engage with the city so that people take notice, the church must be radical. Not the building, but the individuals who make up the church.

What are your thoughts? Are you offended? Inspired? How does the image of an upside-down church sit with you?

Make a trip down to Coal Harbour and experience this for yourself so you can better formulate your own opinion.

I find this to be a beautiful and engaging piece of art.

Upside-down church sculpture on hit list

Christina Montgomery, The Province

Published: Sunday, March 30, 2008

Vancouverites may not know art, but they know what they want in their public parks -- and it apparently doesn't include a sculpture of a church driven upside-down into the ground by its steeple.

The controversial Coal Harbour sculpture, titled Device to Root Out Evil, is on the hit list in a report heading for the parks board next week.

If the board approves the staff recommendation, the seven-storey sculpture could be carted off

The work, the creation of American artist Dennis Oppenheim, was placed in Harbour Green Park on Cordova Street as part of the Vancouver Biennale sculpture festival in 2005.

It was put on display for 18 months under the board's standard terms for public-art displays, and critics of the piece have been assured the display was only short-term.

But it has now been offered on loan to the city for an extended period -- much to the horror of some area residents, who made impassioned pleas to the board to remove the work that offends both their religious and aesthetic sensibilities.

Another of the 2005 works proved more popular. The board will debate making finding a permanent spot for the piece known as Echoes. The stainless-steel chairs, each with an evocative word etched into their seats, have been on display at Sunset Beach.

The staff report recommends against extending Device's 18-month period and notes that "public response to the work has been mixed, with a greater proportion of the response being negative." It also says that "a technical analysis of the siting has determined the work is not comfortably accommodated for an extended period."

Complaints included that the piece blocked views of the water and took up too much of the tiny green space on which it sits. Other residents said it simply offended their Christian beliefs to see a church turned upside-down.

Michaela Frosch, chairwoman of the Vancouver Biennale, has said the group is working with the foundation that owns it to find another public setting.