Public Sweat: Where Art, Sauna & Community Collide

Part art installation, part sauna village, Public Sweat took over Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre for close to two months last year using a most unexpected medium: the sauna.

Inspired by sauna and global sweat-bathing traditions, Public Sweat featured five different sweat-bathing spaces — each designed by a different artist — that attracted more than 6,000 people, many of whom had never set foot inside a sauna before.

In this episode, we’re joined by Layne Hinton, the co-founder of Art Spin, which curated Public Sweat, and Chris Foster, the lead artist and technical director of the project.

Layne and Chris share how they brought their incredible vision from dream to reality — including visiting Mikkel Aaland at his private home sauna in Norway for “research” (yes, we’re jealous), and finding artists who were up for the challenge of creating public art while building a functioning sauna at the same time.

They also discuss what makes sauna such a unique medium for this kind of immersive art experience, the importance of the social and community aspects of sauna, and where they see Public Sweat going from here.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Layne Hinton

Chris Foster

Public Sweat

Art Spin

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Have a question, comment or an idea for a future episode? Email us at alan@kivia.ca.