Eight 10-second video works by Vancouver artists created for the video screens at Canada Line SkyTrain Stations. List of works: Chelsea O’Brian Escape Velocity, 2011; Dana Claxton Hippie Chick, 2011; Douglas Coupland Vancouver Codes, 2012; James Yan One Percent, 2011; Jeff Chiba Stearns An Ode To Vancouver Hockey Fans, 2011; Laiwan Movement for Two Grannies, 2011; Michael Turner Slash Forward, 2011; Tony Pantages Polar Bear: Native to Vancouver, 2011. All of the 10-second pieces can be viewed on YouTube, Facebook, and www.onmaingallery.com.

This unique exhibition included work from student, emerging and established artists who delivered a collection of diverse points-of-view that converged in common themes. Artists reclaimed privatized space by interrupting the steady flow of commercial advertising through placement of media art works. The artists used a wide range of innovative approaches that explored using the video medium in 10 seconds. This included the cinematic, graphic, poetic, animated, performative, dramatic and the mining of archives. This experimental project claimed and recontextualized privatized space for the creation and presentation of new forms of public art for mass audience consumption. The placement of the works was both subliminal and subversive. 10 Second launched April 2011 with archival film footage of the first Stanley Park Easter Be-In depicting a hippie chick dancing freely. Themes included intergenerational and cross-generational arcs in addressing the shared trajectories of family and community histories, and in the process uncovered and preserved history as contemporary media. A grandfather’s legacy is remixed into a multi-screen montage; in a touching portrait two Chinese grannies walk on water taking us through the ages; a performance artist soars over the city suspended from a helicopter; a new immigrant uses technology as a measure to contrast shifting cultures; Twitter becomes op art, and QR codes function as art that takes us into portals. Events such as the Stanley Cup Riot, inspired the animation of fire-breathing serpents. This work can be seen as a reflection on the recent past and of things yet to come in the year of the water-dragon.