September 2008
It doesn’t seem a building so much as a declaration: stamped onto 124 Street, a few blocks north of the upscale Jasper restaurants and boutiques, a few blocks south of the bohemian surroundings of the Roxy Theatre, the Lightform Design Centre announces itself with Bauhausian heft, a stark, simple steel-and-glass fishbowl of modern design.
Housing four different stores, Lightform itself and three others who share its tastes, is quite literally a landmark, a focal point of contemporary design, a vivid, physical exhortation to any who pass by that there is something interesting happening, both inside its walls and the city as a whole.
“I think it’s a big deal for Edmonton,” says installation artist and current director of marketing and design for Lightform, Jesse Sherburne, stepping back and gazing around to better appreciate the building’s scope. “It really sets a precedent for design in this city. It’s something that kind of gets neglected in our blue-collar town, but I think this a pretty bold statement about what we’re looking to do.”
Specifically, it’s to not only bring contemporary design to Edmonton in a fairly practical way, but to bring Edmonton to contemporary design. One of the city’s most successful design exports—Lightform currently has showrooms in Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, and has designed spaces for clients like Red Bull and Microsoft—as Sherburne explains, they want to bring some of what they’ve given to other cities to their hometown, and help shake off Edmonton’s reputation as a land of big boxes, figuratively and literally.
“As far as the store’s concerned, it’s not a come-in, buy-a-bunch-of-stuff Ikea experience; it’s more of a come in and participate in design culture experience,” says Sherburne, who points out that, like him, all of Lightform’s employees have some form of training in design. “We want to educate people by sharing our knowledge with them, spend time with them and teach them about design, then help them find what they want.”
That educating, engaging approach goes well beyond simply selling people stuff, though, as evidenced by their grand opening party, which Sherburne is planning. Enlisting his particular talents—you probably know him best from his refreshingly provocative, intelligent Art Bar show at the AGA, the most popular, if also the most controversial, show to hit Edmonton in recent memory—he’ll be turning the corridor that separates the two buildings that make up the compound into one of his experiential installations, transforming the typical schmoozefest into a work of art.
“I’m really interested in the convergence of conceptual art and design, and installation versus design, and the idea of a relational or experiential art,” explains Sherburne. “Basically, you have this experience with a space, and then it’s gone: you change the rules of the space, but only for a while. you have an event and then it disappears. It goes into another interesting thing for me, which is the dialogue after, the discussion about it.”
The desire for discussion is a large part of why Sherburne has found Lightform to be an ideal fit for him. The company has plans to bring in other modern designers and artists—though perhaps not always to design their own parties—to further reach out to Edmonton, and show the city the possibilities and pleasure of modern design.
“It’s part of our mandate, contributing to the design community, giving back to it,” says Sherburne. “We want to do things that are actually innovative, that generate some dialogue, that get people thinking about design and how it affects them.”
This news message is supported by The Bazaar, a marketplace to buy and sell creative objects. Earn more revenue by selling your prints, downloadable images, or custom products. Set up your store today and stand a chance to have your products featured on DesignTAXI, towards millions of lovers of creative content!
