On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 10:30 p.m., Craig Winslow and Matt Cohen will be launching the world’s first permanent ghost sign light installation in Winnipeg’s Exchange District.
Using a series of gobo projectors, the installation will rotate through three layers of painted ads on the northeast side of 281 McDermot Avenue. The work builds on Cohen’s ghost sign research and Winslow’s Light Capsules project, and uses augmented restoration to showcase the ghost signs overlooking Old Market Square, from sundown until midnight every night.
In addition to the nightime installation, two companion pieces will help the public to interpret the history of the ads. StobartSign.ca contains corporate histories, product shots and archival photos of the businesses and brands that called the building home. For those looking to see what the signs would have looked like freshly painted, Winslow is launching a beta version of a new Light Capsules iOS app, allowing the public to use augmented reality to overlay a virtual coat of paint over the fading ads in real time, day or night.
