Comments on: Mayor Larry’s Swap Box

By: Kelsey

Kelsey — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:27:57 +0000

I found your atc yesterday at the swap box outside Wallacks. I love street art and was fascinated by the boxes – I had never seen anything inside until now. I had nothing to leave, and for that I was, and am, horribly sad. Today I will go there as I go to school (I am a student at Ottawa School of Art) and leave two of my prints in the box. If you like, check out my public art experiment – I made 57 woodblock reduction prints and left them on busses around Ottawa and saw if anyone got back to me. It’s at myspace.com/tyfttb.

Real glad I found this website,
Kelsey

By: knitnut.net » Swap Box Project Still Going Strong

knitnut.net » Swap Box Project Still Going Strong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:18:53 +0000

[...] I’ve recently started leaving my Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) in the Mayor Larry Swap Box on Lisgar Street outside The Invisible Theatre. [...]

By: knitnut.net » Portrait Gallery Consolation Prizes

knitnut.net » Portrait Gallery Consolation Prizes — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 14:44:24 +0000

[...] I suspect the NCC qualified for its own Swap Box the same way Larry O’Brien did – by virtue of its notoriety as a Big Stakes Swapper. The Swap Box says “The NCC traded Lebreton Flats for $7 million. What’ll you swap?” [...]

By: elmaks

elmaks — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:05:30 +0000

Ephemerality is one of the qualities of street art, so I expect that eventually the Boxes will get taken down. How long they last depends on how people in the neighbourhood treat them and the attitude that city crews take. The one over in Westboro has been up since May or so.

By: elmaks

elmaks — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:03:42 +0000

What is Swap Box?

A musing on the characteristics of the Swap Box… and a manifesto on what street art itself should be.

1. Swap Box improves its immediate environment and adds to its use characteristics. Where previously there was a telephone pole or a sheet of plywood there is now a piece of interactive art. Swap Box is also interactive. People are free to place items within the Box and take what they wish.

2. Swap Box adds beauty, wonder and an element of ever-changing uncertainty to the urban landscape. One does not know what will be in the Swap Box unless one looks inside.

3. Swap Box reduces all to equals in their use of it. President Bush and a six-year-old child both have the same relation to Swap Box when they open it and look inside. The creator of the Swap Box, likewise, has no idea of what will be inside.

4. Swap Box is capable of being easily adapted to any city and any situation…all it takes is a few things and a bit of work. Likewise, Swap Box can be decorated any way which the Swap Box creator wishes

5. Swap Box creates something within the urban landscape which keeps people coming back to check on it. It becomes a destination in itself.

6. Swap Box draws people’s paths together and provides a potential meeting-place for strangers.

By: grace

grace — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:20:36 +0000

So, will you tell us about the woman in the photo?

By: Greater Ottawa

Greater Ottawa — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:19:18 +0000

What’ll you swap?…

It’s sort of like geocaching without the caching part, I guess, but it’s an excuse for some fine social…