THE VIEWS DOWN THE LINE
Confederation LRT station concepts
The city has revealed concepts for $7.3 million worth of art pieces that will be installed in the 13 Confederation Line LRT stations, showcasing the works of local talent and internationally renowned artists.
Municipal public art policy compels the city to contribute one per cent of hard construction costs to a public art account. With a $2.1-billion budget to build the first phase of LRT, the city has a big pot of money from which to fund artwork along the 12.5-kilometre line.
Instead of holding an unveiling ceremony as previously anticipated, the city listed the art projects on its website earlier this week.
Here’s what the transit-riding public will encounter when their trains roll into the stations starting next year.
TUNNEY’S PASTURE
Vancouver artist Derek Root will integrate glass tile murals on each side of the platform, plus a laminated glass skylight, in artwork he calls Gradient Space. Cost: $495,000.
BAYVIEW
The city attached the artistic theme of “sustainability” to the station.
Ottawa artist Adrian Göllner will create a 120-metre-long piece called As the Crow Files, which will be used as the barrier between tracks through the station. Made with tubular steel and fencing, the work will feature the silhouette of surrounding buildings and the Gatineau Hills and the flight line of a crow. Cost: $495,000.
The city has tapped Toronto artist Pierre Poussin to create laser-cut aluminum sculptures outside the station. The work, called Cascades, draws context from the Chaudiere Falls on the Ottawa River and adds the visual element of water, symbolizing new communities growing in the area. Cost: $200,000.
PIMISI (LEBRETON FLATS)
Several Indigenous artists will be involved in creating pieces that celebrate the Algonquin-Anishinabe people.
Nadia Myre of Montreal will design an eight-metre-tall chrome sculpture of an eel in the adjacent aqueduct. Pimisi means eel in the Algonquin language and it’s culturally significant for the Algonquin people. Myre will also design a three-metre sculpture of a split-ash woven basket and a windscreen made out of tinted glazed panels appearing like a row of birch trees. Cost: $740,000.
Algonquin artist Simon Brascoupé of Ottawa will mentor four artists — Emily Brascoupé-Hoefler, Doreen Stevens, Sherry-Ann Rodgers and Sylvia Tennisco — in creating an art installation of 100 hand-painted paddles arranged in the shape of a canoe. The paddles will be created through workshops held in Algonquin communities in the region. Brascoupé will also create a 3.7-metre-high sculpture of a moose and other artists will contribute pieces using the art of Algonquin birch bark biting. Cost: $296,000.
LYON
A work titled This Image Relies on Positive Thinking, by Calgary artist Geoff McFetridge, will be applied to walls near the station entrances using a two-part epoxy paint and an anti-graffiti coating. His art will speak to the “house of cards” nature of living in a city. Cost: $595,000.
To recognize the station theme of Bytown, PLANT Architect will pay homage to Ottawa’s history with a stainless-steel curtain laser cut with words from The Last Days of Bytown, written by Anne Dewar, who was part of the Women’s Canadian Historical Society. The piece celebrates the 32 women who founded the society in 1898. Cost: $200,000.
PARLIAMENT
Using the theme of Confederation, Vancouver artist Douglas Coupland will create a piece, installed on a concrete wall, of provincial flags deconstructed into colourful abstract, laser-cut, quarter-inch metal shapes with a powder coat finish. In his explanation of the concept on the city’s website, Coupland said he has modified the flags in a way “of the 2017 moment and yet which is also graphically timeless in a Modernist way.” Cost: $595,000.
In her artwork Trails: home and away, Jennifer Stead of Florenceville-Bristol, N.B., will create 11 laser-cut painted steel panels, nine feet tall by 20 feet long, depicting the small, low-growing plants that line the paths and trails across Canada. Cost: $200,000.
RIDEAU
Geneviève Cadieux of Montreal will create a photographic image featuring shimmering water printed on glass on one of the concourse walls. The work, called FLOW, will evoke the significance of the Rideau Canal, which is near the station. Cost: $595,000.
Toronto artist Jim Verburg will create an artwork with seven black tiled sections that contain geometric-shaped outlines made of polished stainless-steel rods. It will be reminiscent of blueprints, sketches and architectural drawings. Cost: $200,000.
UOTTAWA
Themed “innovation” by the city, the station will feature the work of Calgary artist Derek Michael Besant. He plans to create 37 largescale portraits, purposely out of focus, based on cross-sections of people who frequent the university environment. Each black-andwhite portrait will have an English or French word as potential reflections in the viewers’ individual lives.
Kenneth Emig of Ottawa will create Sphere Field, a two-metre cube of mirror and glass containing lights and a reflective sphere forming a “sculptural observator.” Cost: $200,000.
LEES
Ottawa artist Amy Thompson will create Transparent Passage, which will be layered patterns on glass and sculptural elements of a bird in flight. The artwork will line the westbound multi-use path and be visible from the eastbound train platform. Cost: $295,000.
HURDMAN
Coordinated Movement, by Vancouver artist Jill Anholt, will be a painted metal structure suspended from the station walls, mimicking flight patterns of birds. The area of the Rideau River is along the Atlantic Flyway of migrating water fowl. Cost: $495,000.
TREMBLAY
Toronto artist Jyhling Lee will create National Garden, a sculptural plaza canopy of the official flowers from each province, territory and the City of Ottawa. Mirrored-finish, stainless-steel panels will be installed under the glass canopy connecting the LRT and Via Rail stations. Cost: $345,000.
ST. LAURENT
Andrew Morrow of Chelsea, Que., will paint three large, immersive murals depicting “reimagined” Canadian histories. He will use digital printing technology and paint to create the works at two platforms. Cost: $345,000.
CYRVILLE
Don Maynard of Kingston will create Stand of Birch: 13 slender, stainless-steel birch trees, measuring 7.3 metres tall and surrounded by prairie grasses. The sculpture will be installed at the north end of the station platform. The 13 trees represents the 13 LRT stations in the first phase, symbolizing the “coming-together” of people as they travel across Ottawa. Cost: $295,000
BLAIR
Lightscape, by cj fleury of Ottawa and Catherine Widgery of Montreal, will be inspired by the sunrise and will feature 30 suspended screens of binary-code-like pieces. The artwork will “announce the stairwells and tracks and move in response to the air currents of the trains as they come and go.” Cost: $495,000