The Bicycle Rehabilitation Project
Michael Flaherty

The Bicycle Rehabilitation Project is a two-part traveling interactive art piece. The first part is a series of exhibitions at galleries across North America. I set up a repair shop in each gallery and invite the public to participate by stopping in to get their bicycles tuned up. The second part is that I will be traveling to and from each gallery on my bicycle, crossing the continent from west to east.

I wish to convey that bicycling can be a powerful symbolic activity, capable of much more than simply moving from there to here, and that caring for and maintaining each single bicycle amounts to caring for the environment and interpersonal relationships. Ultimately, my goal is to encourage more cycling – and therefore less driving – by dealing with the individual technical problems that might inhibit it on a bike-by-bike basis.

The crucial conceptual components of this project are the relationships being built through the activity of repairing bicycles. The title of the exhibition – The Bicycle Rehabilitation Project – speaks not only of the practice of repairing bicycles, but also of the restorative and relational powers that bicycles provide for participants in the project.

Exhibition date: June 21 – June 28, 2007

gallery    Peep Show    Tammy Salzl

Bicycle Rehabilitation Project Website