July 12, 2004
Winning designs for manhole covers to be unveiled
Two new manhole cover designs, chosen from a public competition, will
be unveiled at a ceremony on:
Wednesday, July 21 at 6 pm (approximately)
Roundhouse Community Centre
181 Roundhouse Mews (Pacific Boulevard at Davie Street)
Councillor Jim Green and local arts writer Max Wyman will help
unveil the winning designs from the City of Vancouver’s Art Underfoot
contest. The winners will each receive a $2,000 award. The top-30 shortlisted
entries will also be part of a prize draw.
Art Underfoot invited anyone who lives, works or goes to school in Vancouver
to submit designs for decorating manhole covers, the lids that mark the
entrances to our underground network of sewers. The City’s Public
Art Program received more than 640 entries from Vancouverites of all
walks of life and ages.
All 640 entries will be exhibited at the Roundhouse Community Centre
on these dates:
July 18 to 24
Sunday, July 18, noon to 5 pm
Weekdays, 9 am to 10 pm
Saturday, July 24, 9 am to noon
An independent panel of judges (artist Sonny Assu; Vancouver Art Gallery
Chief Curator Daina Augaitus; writer Douglas Coupland; and Executive
Director of the David Suzuki Foundation Jim Fulton) chose the winning
designs, which will be imprinted on the cast-iron covers that lead
into the city’s vast network of storm and sanitary sewers.
The decorated manhole covers will be used on new installations and
when old covers
need replacing.
The two different covers will also highlight the separation of Vancouver’s
storm and sanitary sewers. The City has been gradually replacing the
system with separate storm and sanitary pipes to better handle the
increased flows caused by our growing population and urbanization,
and to protect
the environment.
The Art Underfoot competition was part of a plan approved by Vancouver
City Council to incorporate public art on infrastructure items. Council
sees this initiative as a chance to make these kinds of elements more
visible to the public and enhance Vancouver’s streetscape by
using everyday utilitarian pieces as canvases for art.
For more information:
Barbara Cole
Public Art Program
604.871.6038
Klodyne Rodney
Public Art Program
604.871.6228
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