Changing Times

In the fall of 2010, the Public Art Program invited artists to propose artworks for public sites within Vancouver to celebrate the City's 125th Anniversary.

The artworks were intended to resonate with and mark time, record change, rethink visions and processes that form and affect the city, identify unique geographic and civic spaces or characters and communities that have animated the city, or fashion visions or markers to measure its potential for the future.

The open call for public artwork ideas that reflected on the city and change over time received 100 project proposals, of which eight were short-listed, and six were ultimately selected.

The winning artists and their projects are:

Sonny Assu: To create street and other signage that reflects the shared history of the Coast Salish people and the City of Vancouver.

Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber: A Sign for the City is a sonic/visual public art project that involves appropriating the sound of Vancouver’s Nine O’Clock Gun each day for one year as a memorial for key figures and events in B.C.’s alternative history. A monthly calendar is published in the Georgia Straight and on transit shelter posters. A booklet is available at the Audain Gallery, SFU, and Read Books, ECU. View the artwork (1.41mb)

Lorna Brown and Clint Burnham: Digital Natives was a series of text-based messages in English and First Nations languages on the advertising billboard at the Burrard Street Bridge, drawing from Twitter messages from artists, writers, and Vancouver residents. The messages appeared in April 2011 and the larger project included a symposium and workshops with youth. Produced by Other Sights for Artists' Projects. View the artwork.

Cameron Kerr: To create a series of marble sculptures comprised of tropes of elements of Vancouver’s modernist architecture and playing with cultural signifiers.

Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky: A False Creek is a project that will simultaneously memorialize what was once part of False Creek, and represent how, according to climate models, it may be again.

Paul Wong: 10 Seconds in Time produced by On Main is a one-year project to commission ten Vancouver artists to create ten-second works to be presented on the Canada Line video monitors and secondary sites. To date, the list of artists participating in the 10 Seconds series is as follows: Dana Claxton (April 2011); Michael Turner (May 2011); James Yan - Arts Umbrella Buschlen Mowatt Scholarship Program (June 2011); Laiwan (July 2011); Chelsea O'Brian (September 2011); Jeff Chiba Stearns (October 2011); Tony Pantages (November 2011); Douglas Coupland (January 2012). February and March 2012 artists to be announced. View the artwork.

* Please check back on this website for images and information on the artists and their projects.

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The City of Vancouver Public Art Program supports excellence in public art of many kinds, by emerging and established artists, in new and traditional media, and through award-winning commissions and artist collaborations. The program produces contemporary art for public spaces through two streams: Civic projects funded through capital budgets and Private sector projects, funded through the rezoning process.