Nooks & Crannies
Site-specific installation, environmental art
Okotoks & Calgary, Alberta
Nooks & Crannies is a five-year series of site-specific installations at the Nooks & Crannies Festival in Okotoks, Alberta (2019–2024). The festival invites artists to place temporary works in overlooked public spaces — the gaps, alleys, and forgotten corners between businesses — using only recycled or repurposed materials.
Over five years, the installations evolved in ambition: Comfortable Seduction (2019, with 2Peaz), Reduce Reuse Recycle Respect the Cook (2021, with 2Peaz), Uncomfortably Comfortable (2022, with 2Peaz), Food (In)Security Blanket (2023, a solo 4'x8' fibre sculpture from produce packaging), and SOS Contraption (2024, a solo 7-foot water harvesting installation applying permaculture principles in partnership with the Healthy Okotoks Coalition Community Garden).
Nooks & Crannies demonstrates Melisa's ability to work at different scales, from the intimate and hidden to the large and public, and her evolution from collaborative 2Peaz work to increasingly ambitious solo installations addressing food security and water conservation.
The Situation
The Nooks & Crannies Festival in Okotoks, Alberta invites artists to create temporary, site-specific installations in overlooked public spaces — the gaps, alleys, and forgotten corners between businesses. All materials must be recycled or repurposed (a festival requirement). For Melisa, this format was a perfect fit for her practice of using food systems and waste materials to make social commentary tangible.
The Approach
Over five years (2019–2024), Melisa created a series of installations that evolved from collaborative 2Peaz work to increasingly ambitious solo projects:
- Comfortable Seduction (2019) — with Sharon Fortowsky as 2Peaz; mixed media from the Okotoks Eco-Centre installed in an alleyway (~10m x 1.5m)
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Respect the Cook (2021) — with 2Peaz; a repurposed cupboard with fused plastic grocery packaging, framed recipes, and a hidden "Guilty Pleasures" stash of candy wrappers
- Uncomfortably Comfortable (2022) — with 2Peaz
- Food (In)Security Blanket (2023) — solo; a 4'x8' fibre sculpture stitched from produce packaging and repurposed netting, with a papier mache tomato plant in a diced tomato can hidden underneath
- SOS Contraption (2024) — solo; a 7-foot water harvesting installation applying permaculture principles, in partnership with the Healthy Okotoks Coalition Community Garden (HOCCG)
The Challenges
Creating meaningful art from discarded materials in outdoor public spaces — weather, durability, and the constraint that all materials must be recycled or repurposed. Each year raised the bar: from alleyway installations to freestanding sculptures. The SOS Contraption in particular required functional engineering (actual water collection) alongside artistic intent, pushing Melisa to integrate her new permaculture knowledge into practice.
The Impact
The five-year arc at Nooks & Crannies established Melisa as a consistent presence at the festival and demonstrated the evolution of her practice — from collaborative beginnings with 2Peaz to ambitious solo installations addressing food security and water conservation. The Food Insecurity Blanket was subsequently exhibited at Earth Hour at the main branch of the Calgary Public Library (2025), extending its reach beyond the festival context.
Lessons Learned
The annual return to Nooks & Crannies allowed Melisa to build on each year's work and develop increasingly ambitious concepts within a supportive festival framework. The partnership with HOCCG for the SOS Contraption showed that art installations can have functional afterlives — the water harvesting installation was designed to continue serving the community garden after the festival ended.