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July 21, 2004
Local artists win design contest for city manhole covers
Images created by Vancouver artists will be featured on new manhole covers
in the City of Vancouver.
Jen Weih and the mother/daughter team of Susan A. Point and Kelly Cannell
were announced as winners of the City of Vancouver’s Art Underfoot
competition, at an event at the Roundhouse Community Centre Wednesday evening.
The competition invited Vancouverites 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.
Weih’s winning designs will decorate sanitary sewer covers. A graduate
of Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, she’s a multimedia installation
artist who works with sculpture, video, and sound. Weih has worked as the
Exhibitions and Programming Coordinator at the Video In, and has been active
in the Vancouver art community as a curator, writer, and artist.
Point and Cannell designed the winning look for new storm sewer covers.
Both are Vancouver-based Coast Salish artists who work in a variety of
media. Point is a recognized master carver, and has completed numerous
major commissions including work for the Vancouver International Airport,
the UBC Museum of Anthropology and the Smithsonian.
Cannell has incorporated painting and wood carving with traditional Coast
Salish elements in her work. She was commissioned by Canadian Airlines
to create the logo for their team’s shirts in an international world
airline road race; has collaborated with her mother on screen prints; and
has worked on a number of her own private commissions.
The winners received $2,000 awards for their designs which will be imprinted
on the cast-iron covers that lead into the city’s storm and sanitary
sewers. The decorated manhole covers will be used on new installations
and replacement covers.
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 winners.
To see the winning designs and the top 30 entries, go to: www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/artunderfoot
For more information:
Barbara Cole
Public Art Program
604.871.6038
Klodyne Rodney
Public Art Program
604.871.6228
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