Public Contraversies
Following the controversy that sparked from the Toronto Star article, multiple interviews with Reid were released from a variety of local online sources. In many of these articles, there is a noticeable effort to improve upon the initial public reaction. Most of the articles refer to the selection process as an “international competition” (Goodden; Gupta; Canadian Architect). This choice of terminology is peculiar. While there were no restrictions on who could submit a proposal, the Request for Proposal documents were required to be picked up in-person at the TTC’s Project Procurement Section (Call for Submissions, BlogTo). While the selection process may technically be considered an “international competition,” there is no currently accessible record which documents the use of such language prior to the promotion of Zones of Immersion. A change of this manner may be interpreted as a response to the negativity surrounding the piece. It obscures the reality that one could only receive the information for the competition if one was physically located in Toronto while concurrently retroactively assuring members of the public that appropriate processes were followed concerning the selection of the piece.
In his interviews, Reid maintains a strong focus on the message and meaning of the art, stating “public art has to be art first and public second” (qtd. in Goodden). Reid assures readers that his work is based in realism. Regarding the public transit goers who inspired this realism, Reid states “they get up, they go to work, they come home, and they’re beat.” He asserts that this interpretation is not dour, rather it is “just part of what’s going on.” Reid himself is not consistent in how he claims Zones of Immersion should be received. When Goodden asks Reid about the public reaction to Zones of Immersion he states that he has worked to create “something that would give [the people of Toronto] psyche and aliveness and coolness and the sense that they are valued.” This is contradictory to Reid’s statement in Spurr’s Toronto Star article in which he compares Zones of Immersion to “listening to the blues when you’re already feeling down" as he insists that "[the piece] meets you where you’re at and deepens that experience.’” While the first quote provided is similar to his other commentary on the collective experience of the subway, in the following quote Reid explains more explicitly that part of the impact he expects to elicit from Zones of Immersion is a deep exploration of negative feelings.