Where’s Waldo
BY Liiva Sandy
Photography by Emiliano Sepulveda
When former Emily Carr art student Melanie Coles finished her graduation project earlier this year, she made headlines from Japan to Brazil.
Coles has installed an enormous image of Waldo on top of an unnamed Vancouver building. The famously elusive bespectacled children’s book character will remain there until he’s captured by a Google satellite and an international, online game of “Where’s Waldo?” can begin.
“I had no idea that it would make this kind of impact,” says Coles. “Within the first day it was all over blogs, and the press started calling me the next day.”
The 23-year-old artist plans to keep her design open source to encourage other people to make and hide their own Waldos. “I wanted to make a piece that the public could interact with,” she explains. “I also wanted it to have a sense of humour.”
So far Coles has received emails from people as far away as Phoenix and New Orleans who want to create their own Waldo projects.
