Born 1969, Chailey, UK. Lives and works in Winnipeg.
The Candahar is an artwork, a prop, a live art, a point where art and life merge... as a bar at the Bourget Building.
Since moving to Canada from Belfast, Theo Sims has reflected on the importance of art and context; particularly how Northern Irish contemporary art over the past 15 years brought an emphasis on place and context and stressed engagement with the politics of location.
This engagement in the politics of location has become fundamental to The Candahar, a reversal of the more common approach, whereby site-specific public art attempts to engage community and context of its location.
The Candahar is named after a Belfast street and loosely based on a now defunct bar called the Blackthorn. The Blackthorn was reconditioned in the 1980's to look like a Georgian bar and then a chic martini bar.
As an installation the bar is twice removed from its original function and historical footnote and only 'completed' through a social dynamic. Sims invites visitors to occasionally enjoy libation and engage, as performers. Careful consideration is given to staffing the bar with "local characters" headed here by Bruno Ricciardi-Rigault, as well as hosting Belfast artists Ursula Burke, Chris Roddy and Conor Roddy.
www.artsboard.sk.ca
www.recirca.com