About

The Project

Imaginary Ordinary opened its doors on May 8th, 2008. For the next four months, people sat on the chairs drinking tea, moved the chairs to the side and held tap dance classes, traded plants, yelled at cars through megaphones, cooked, cut cardboard, held shows, and talked together. On August 29th, there was a giant party at Imaginary Ordinary. The next morning the pictures were taken down, the table rolled out, and the tea cups packaged up forever. This website is a tribute to what happened during the four months of this project, the intentions as well as the result.

 

 

 

The Idea

Imaginary Ordinary is a social networking site where different groups or individuals of all ages can meet and connect with one another. Imaginary Ordinary is a community centre—a place where everybody in the neighbourhood can come to participate in activities, share information, or simply to browse and hang out.

Community centres can create a “map” of a community. They identify and connect the people who live, work, and play within a neighbourhood. Community centres are for everybody: the rich, the poor, and people of all different races, ages, and cultural backgrounds. They include people based on shared geography instead of shared demographics or ideals. They exist to support the claim that by virtue of living somehwere, you belong. You are a part of what constitutes and makes up that community. In this way, community centres are not so much about the physical building—the hardwood floors and the tar on the roof—but about the people who use the centre and the relationships that they have to each other and to their places.

In addition to being a nice place to hang out, Imaginary Ordinary will host a variety of one-time and ongoing events. These will include a question and answer series, a walking club, panel discussions with kids, music events (shows!), pot lucks, dance parties, and these curious yellow kits with activities in them that people can borrow to use within the community. Anyone can come to Imaginary Ordinary, but we will be focusing on the communities of Renfrew (Regal Terrace) and Crescent Heights.

 

 

 

The People

Imaginary Ordinary is the creative project of Eric Moschopedis  and his accomplice, Laura Leif.

Eric Moschopedis is an award winning interdisciplinary performer, facilitator, educator, and curator. In 2008 Moschopedis completed his Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies at University of British Columbia: Okanagan. By combining a child-like curiosity with the scrutiny of an ethnographer, Moschopedis creates community-specific, relational, and participatory works that invite audiences to become active collaborators in the creation of community. In addition to participatory works, Moschopedis maintains a performance practice that oscillates between staged performance, performance for video, installation, performative work, intervention, and walking, finding, and collecting.

During the past decade, Moschopedis has been actively involved in creating and curating performance and visual art in the Calgary community. In 2000, Moschopedis co-founded and directed the Calgary-based interdisciplinary performance company Bubonic Tourist (2000-2006), curated five Mutton Busting international performance and visual art festivals (2002-2006), presented over 550 artists, created over thrity-five original performance/performative works, and co-founded two performance and visual art venues (birds and stone and Motel). Moschopedis is a sessional instructor in the Department of Drama at the University of Calgary and continues to play an active role in the development and dissemination of original interdisciplinary performance and visual art.

Moschopedis has been recognized in numerous publications and most recently was honored as one of one hundred Alberta theatre artists who have made vital contributions to theatre arts during the one hundred years of this Province’s history. His expertise in creating community through performance has been in great demand and he has spoken on the issue at conferences across Canada.

Laura Leif is a local curator, adventurer, and creator of fine things. Leif’s various projects stem from a desire to build community, and they reflect a tenderness towards the locations, people, and communities that make up her immediate region. Leif’s work has included curatorial projects aimed at fostering supportive exchanges between people and positive interactions with physical spaces. Aside from creating events, festivals, and temporary performance spaces, Leif also creates  performances, nice music, and lovely drawings and animations.

Leif’s projects include Choose Yer Own (2008 – 2009), a collaborative festival that makes use of unusual Calgary venues, as well as the multidisciplinary programming collective, The Summerwood Warren (2004 – 2009).