Winnipeg-based artist Cedric Bomford builds playful things—structures that have their roots in the mundane built environment we all navigate each day, but with exuberant and/or sinister mutations: window nooks that look like a cluster of mushrooms, a surveillance tower built in Red Bull's corporate offices, the opening to a "mine" on the wooden deck of an art gallery.

The Seattle office of Arts & Culture has just announced a "major commission" from Bomford (who often works with his father and brother) as part of the new waterfront, specifically in designing "play areas or equipment." Seems like the right man for the job. I hope he'll bring some of his sly sense of critique to the playground.

The full press release is below the jump:

Arts & Culture is pleased to announce the selection of Cedric Bomford for a major commission as part of Waterfront Seattle. A Canadian artist working in photography and installation, Bomford is currently based in Winnipeg, where he is an assistant professor in the University of Manitoba School of Art. This project is Bomford’s first in the U.S.

Building on a conference on “Art, Design and Play” organized by Waterfront Seattle and the Office of Arts & Culture last March, the call’s focus was to bring an artist into the process of designing play areas or equipment for Waterfront Seattle. Bomford will join a team of architects, planners and city designers to create the project over the next several years.

Waterfront Seattle is the large-scale project to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with 26 acres of new public space, streets, parks, and buildings. Arts and culture will play a central role on the Waterfront, through permanent commissions, live arts and entertainment, and the creation of new cultural spaces for artistic production and presentation. Responding to the history of the site, its ecology, economy, and communities, the art program will help to create a sense of place on the renewed waterfront that will act as an invitation to residents and visitors alike.

“We are building a waterfront for all. Designing spaces for play is key to engaging not only young people, but families and kids of all ages,” says Marshall Foster, director of Seattle’s Office of the Waterfront. Randy Engstrom, director of the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, added, “Bomford’s selection provides us with the opportunity to integrate a unique interactive concept into the fabric of the waterfront design that will be appealing to people of all ages.”

The call was open to artists working internationally, and received 186 applications from artists in 26 states and territories and 12 nations. Applicants were evaluated by a panel of professional artists, curators, and designers, with advisors drawn from city staff, the Waterfront Seattle design team, and the downtown community.

According to Bomford his interest lies in the built environment and the politics embedded within it. “I am really drawn to the everyday structures we have around us that we don’t really see very much—the things that become scenery on your commute,” says Bomford. “That’s a pretty productive territory to mine: the overlooked dynamics within everyday life. I’m also interested in the power structures that exist in architecture, and these are often overlooked too.”

As outlined in the Working Plan for Art on the Central Seattle Waterfront, commissions and ongoing cultural programming are part of the construction process for the waterfront. Major commissions, such as this one, will engage residents and visitors and make the Waterfront an active cultural center for the city. The art plan advocates for "cultural connections between the city and the rest of the world." The pier site for this commission links to Seattle's history as a port, and to connections between the local and the global on the waterfront.

About Cedric Bomford
Born in 1975, Cedric Bomford lives and works in Winnipeg, where he is assistant professor in the University of Manitoba School of Art. He holds a BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, and an MFA from the Malmö Art Academy, Sweden. His work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally.

Many of Bomford’s works develop from photographs he has taken of buildings and industrial structures seen during residencies and travels to various parts of the globe. Through improvisatory building and formal juxtapositions, Bomford and his collaborators transform his source materials into fantastical, hodgepodge constructions that connect to deeper histories, politics, and architecture.

Bomford’s work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally, including exhibitions at the Kunstverein Hannover, Germany, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden, and Azad Art Gallery, Tehran. The Office of Special Projects, a gallery-filling installation built by Bomford in collaboration with his brother Nathan and father Jim, was included in How Soon Is Now?, the Vancouver Art Gallery’s 2009 survey of early-career Vancouver artists. More recently, the Bomfords completed Deadhead, a floating sculpture commissioned by Other Sights and Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, BC. Built atop a barge, Deadhead was moored at various sites around Vancouver, accessible by water taxi, and hosted occasional screenings and other events.

For more information on Waterfront Seattle, go here: http://www.seattle.gov/arts/publicart/waterfront.asp