Experiences

A shared experience. A new perspective.

Bring people together through art, curiosity, and a little permission to play.

Created by Calgary artist Michelle Atkinson, In Formation is a reusable sculptural experience for conferences, celebrations, and corporate gatherings. Colourful abstract shapes become the starting point for connection—as guests build together, explore different perspectives, or gather around a distinctive artwork.

Choose a collaborative sculpture, a tabletop experience, or an installed sculptural feature. We’ll help you find the format that fits your event.

Build something together

Collaborative Sculpture

Give guests something to create together—and something to talk about.

Participants connect large sculptural shapes, contributing to an artwork that evolves throughout your event. There’s no prescribed finished form. Each addition creates a new possibility for the next person.

Guests can join for a few minutes or stay to explore. As the sculpture grows, it becomes a shared accomplishment and a natural gathering point.

Ideal for:
Conference receptions
Campus events
Networking gatherings
Teambuilding

Includes reusable sculptural components, setup, and teardown, with facilitation tailored to your event.

ART

A distinct visual and material idea—not branding applied to a generic object.

EXPEREINCE

Consideration for how people will encounter, use, share or remember the work.

STRATEGY

A clear connection between the creative direction and your audience, objective, budget and context.

Same pieces. Different possibilities.

Tabletop Experience

What happens when everyone starts with the same pieces but sees something different?

Working in small groups, participants combine colourful transparent shapes to create their own compositions. A guided conversation invites them to consider how they approached the task, interpreted the possibilities, and responded to one another’s ideas.

It’s an accessible way to bring curiosity and creative thinking into the room—including for people who insist they aren’t creative.

Ideal for:
Conference sessions
Leadership gatherings
Professional development
Seated events

Includes reusable tabletop kits, prompts, and artist-led facilitation. Available as a focused activity or paired with a talk.

Set the scene

Sculptural Installation

Bring an artist’s perspective into your event space.

Installed before guests arrive, an In Formation sculpture creates a colourful focal point for a stage, entrance, reception, or photo setting. Its abstract forms invite a closer look, giving guests a distinctive place to gather and capture a memory.

Combine an installed feature with a separate collaborative experience to carry the artwork through your event.

Ideal for:
Stage settings
Receptions
Event entrances
Photo moments

Includes a sculptural composition planned for your space, installation, and teardown. Lighting, event lettering, and photo booth coordination can be explored as part of your proposal.

Take the conversation further

Speaking with Michelle Atkinson

The Space Between Data and Decision

How do we make sense of the same information differently—and what might we discover when we pause to look again?

Drawing on her work across art, design, and data, Michelle invites audiences to explore perception, question assumptions, and reconnect with their own creativity.

Book a talk on its own or combine it with the In Formation tabletop experience, giving participants a shared reference point for the conversation.

New compositions. More occasions.

In Formation is designed to return.

Its reusable components are collected after your event and brought into the next, where a different group creates something new. The rental approach gives organizers a way to invest in a shared experience without sending every guest home with another object.

Looking to reduce event giveaways? Let’s explore how a creative experience and a photo memory could become part of your approach.

Looking for something made for your occasion?

Selected commissions include custom awards, speaker gifts, and artwork that brings a distinctive artistic perspective to your event.

What could take shape at your event?

Tell us your date, location, approximate guest count, and what you’d like people to experience. We’ll recommend a format and build a proposal around your event.

Calgary-based. Travel available by arrangement.

Artist-led.

Strategically grounded.

Alkali Arts combines fine-art thinking, creative strategy, design experience and material experimentation. The result is not a catalogue product with a logo added. It is a project built around what your organization wants people to understand, experience or remember.