David Staples
Managers have invested $1M in five outstanding artworks for new section
First impressions are crucial for a city, yet for decades one of our main gateways to the outside world, the Edmonton International Airport, was drab and cramped. The airport was somewhat functional but thoroughly uninviting. It felt as if it had been designed by folks who specialize in Quonset construction and run by folks who specialize in herding feedlot cattle.
But now, with its wide open, sunny and charming new wing for American and international flights, Edmonton takes a step forward.
Airport managers have invested$1 million in five outstanding artworks for the new wing. The wing is paid for with all of those airport improvement fees (now $25 a pop) travellers have been charged over the years and has a total cost $670 million. It will open in stages, starting with an American departures lounge on Feb. 11, then an international and domestic arrivals section next fall, says Traci Bednard, the airport’s communications vice-president.
Bednard and Liz Dwernychuk, who organized the airport art project, took me on a tour of the new lounges and art works.
Why the new emphasis on beauty of the building?
“I think it’s just more the whole passenger experience,” Bednard says. “Rather than it just being a functional, clinical building, the idea is that people are spending more time here, that airports are now in a competitive business, and they have to earn business, rather than just act as a monopoly.”
I suggested to Bednard that this time the airport got it right, unlike the major 2001 expansion, which was more of the same old, mediocre ugly.
“You know what, it’s more acceptable for us to do this now,” she says of the art projects. “It’s a reflection of the community and what they expect. We had the trial run (of the new departures lounge) last week and people didn’t say, ‘This is too grand for Edmonton. This is too good for us.’ They said, ‘Finally! It fits who we are.’ ”
If this project had been built by the City of Edmonton, one per cent of the capital budget would have been spent on art, $6.7 million in total. That would have been my preference to see more spent on the esthetics, but at least the $1 million was spent wisely here. The art is placed correctly, for maximum impact and exposure.
A bright mural of the mountains around Jasper by painter Jason Carter, a member of the Little Cree reserve in northern Alberta, livens up the U.S. Customs area.
New York artist Karim Rashid’s fibreglass chairs and couches sculp- ture — which is also meant to evoke Alberta’s landscape and oilfields — adorns the U.S. departures area. It is designed for people to sit on. The chairs prove to be as comfortable as they are pleasing to the eye.
Another highlight is a glass tile mosaic depicting the geography of the City of Edmonton by local artist Erin Pankratz-smith.
“We really tried to take a bit of a risk with the art selections,” Bednard says.
Some people will hate some of these works and their cost, I told her, with Rashid’s quirky piece in mind.
“We never had an issue with that,” Bednard says. “Our big fear was that we had a whole series of plain, conservative, acceptable pieces. We didn’t want that. We want each piece to be one people would talk about and would be memorable.”
The two most significant pieces are in the new arrivals area for international flights. They will create that first impression. First is a cool sound-and-light show of digital screens along the lengthy arrivals corridor. The corridor ends in a large rotunda, where a brilliant curving glass sculpture by Vancouver-born Michael Hayden will hang, reflecting light throughout the area.
The art investment in the arrivals area was made because of all the new traffic coming in from the U.S., Bednard says. “What we had was a functional arrivals area,” Bednard says of the current situation. “And what you will see now is something that is much more reflective of the dynamism of Edmonton.”
These commissions were the largest yet for young local artists like Carter, 32, and Pankratz-smith, 37.
The work should open up other doors and other commissions for them. But, of course, we didn’t commission this work just to enhance the careers of Edmonton’s budding artists.
The public has been asked to pay for this art because civic leaders have decided it will provide a public benefit. But does it?
“Art at airports is becoming an important trend,” Dwernychuk says. “Airports are recognizing it’s more than just eye candy, it’s really a PR piece. It helps us promote our airport and make it unique and memorable.”
Adds Pankratz-smith: “People complain about the money spent on art, but in the overall of how much was spent here, it’s a drop in the bucket. But the return is so much more.”
And Rashid: “At the end of the day, when we go through this kind of public space, you actually need this kind of thing, this sort of surprise … to elevate you, to raise you up. It makes you feel a bit alive. Art can de-stress you.”
Not everyone cares about beauty and esthetics. Some think it a foolish waste of time.
At the same time, however, a large portion of the population does care. They can’t tolerate a drab city. They will never get passionate about an ugly place, and Edmonton has suffered in the past for not fully recognizing this.
But a new attitude is taking over, as seen by this airport art project. The age where cheap and ugly is the Edmonton norm has come to an end, at least when it comes to major public projects.