Man Trapped in Public Art
In Edmonton, Alberta, Canada there is a massive piece of public art called The Talus Dome (or sometimes called The Talus Balls). It’s made up of hundreds of silver balls stacked into a pile, so how did someone end up trapped inside?
The Talus Dome
Let’s talk a little bit about the artwork itself before we move onto this incident. This sculpture consists of almost 1000 stainless steel spheres of varying sizes. As I said in the intro, it lives in Edmonton, more specifically the river valley region southeast of the Quesnell Bridge.
This artwork was designed by two artists from Los Angeles; Benjamin Ball (fitting) and Gaston Nogues. It was constructed in 2011 and cost the Edmonton Public Art Collection around $600,000. The mound of spheres is meant to represent a talus, a collection of broken rock fragments at the bottom of a cliff or other steep hill that have accumulated through periodic rockfall. Hence the name.
This installation wasn’t without controversy with some comparing it to animal droppings, a pile of marbles, male reproductive organs, and unused construction materials. Others thought that its placement beside a busy highway and being such a shiny reflective surface might be dangerous for drivers. Still others criticized its price tag, since it is the most expensive piece of public art in Edmonton. Local artist Ryan McCourt said that the sculpture is “an embarrassment to our citizens, a symbol of the Edmonton Arts Council’s continued bungling of their portfolio, and an unforgivable waste of public funds” (Staples, 2011). Ouch.
Easter Sunday, 2023
A local to the area of the sculpture, Connor Schwindt, was out for a post-Easter Dinner run on a route that took him past the Talus Dome when he noticed something really weird going on. He could hear noises coming from inside the structure and a woman who looked like she was talking to it. Upon closer inspection he realized that there was a man stuck inside the dome. Honestly, from looking at photos I don’t even know how this would happen but anyways.
It turns out that the same night, prior to Connor’s run, a man named Wakeem Courtoreille had been walking past with his girlfriend when the thought struck him to climb the sculpture (for the record his girlfriend said she told him it was a bad idea). He climbed almost to the top, damaging a number of balls in the process until he fell through an opening between two of the balls and found himself inside the structure with no way to get out. Connor said watching him in there was like “watching a mouse fall into a bucket” (Snowdon, 2023).
Emergency crews were called to the scene and firefighters had to cut the structure in order to get the man out. Once he was free he was immediately arrested by the attending officers. He was charged with one count of mischief over $5,000 and then released. This rescue was controversial because apparently the sculpture had a built-in hatch for maintenance meaning that cutting into it was completely unnecessary.
Coverage of this rescue went pretty viral at the time and Connor, who recorded the video said it’s “very Edmonton” (Snowdon, 2023).
Works Cited
Cascone, Sarah. “A Man Tried to Climb one of Canada’s Most Famous Public Artworks and got Trapped Inside it Until Rescuers Found Him”. ArtNet News. 2023. https://news.artnet.com/art-world-archives/man-trapped-inside-public-artwork-canada-2284189
Cassidy, Daniel. “Man Gets Trapped in Public Art in Canada After Easter Mischief”. Art News. 2023. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/man-trapped-inside-public-art-edmonton-1234663800/
Snowdon, Wallis. “Man Who Became Trapped in Edmonton Public Art Charged with Mischief”. CBC. 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/talus-dome-sculpture-edmonton-man-trapped-1.6806168
Staples, David. “Edmonton Artist Blasts Talus Dome (and me)”. Edmonton Journal. 2011. https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-artist-blasts-talus-dome-and-me