Three organizations have joined forces to disseminate work made by young Canadian artists to a wider audience. The players are terminus1525, Ile Sans Fil, and Wireless Toronto. terminus1525 is a collaborative online studio where emerging artists can show their work, and find support, feedback and inspiration. Ile Sans Fil (ISF) and Wireless Toronto (WT) are volunteer-run non-profit organizations which develop, deploy and support wireless internet infrastructure, with a focus on serving their local communities.
The Wi-Fi hotspots that are installed and managed by ISF and WT are free to use, once users have registered for an account. After logging in to your local ISF or WT hotspot, users are directed to a website specific for each hotspot before they can surf the web. This opportunity is used to showcase local information or content, and in this case, art from terminus1525 users.
This project delivers incredible exposure for young Canadian artists. Their work is being displayed to 27,500+ users at 135 free hotspots operated by ISF and WT. This is a lot of potential eyeballs – take your average gallery opening and multiply it by a few hundred to get a sense of the scale. Better yet, take your average gallery opening, multiply it by a few hundred, and then imagine it being a much more diverse and varied group, since the users of the ISF and WT hotspots are not necessarily already art patrons.
Too often, the people who hold the content and the people with a tool that could disseminate that content fail to collaborate. The equation seems simple, but it takes people with vision to connect the dots and make it happen. It’s great to see it happening with some of my old colleagues and collaborators in Canada. Congrats Mike, Michael (and Gabe!), and Sophie!