The City of North Vancouver, North Van Arts, and the North Vancouver Recreation & Culture Commission celebrated with a ribbon cutting yesterday the City of North Vancouver’s newest public art piece, ‘At Home,’ a response to the effects of COVID-19 on our local community.
The public art piece is located at the corner of 15th Street and Grand Boulevard.
‘At Home’ is the final stage in the North Van City Mosaic project, one of five projects created by the Mayor’s Healthiest Small City Social Resiliency Collective, formed by the City of North Vancouver Mayor Linda Buchanan in June 2020 as a response to COVID-19.
“Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic there have been times where everyone has felt isolated and alone,” said Mayor Linda Buchanan. “These challenges required communities to act. That’s why I brought together the Mayor’s Healthiest Small City Social Resiliency Collective to facilitate new community connections and create a space for people to have their voices and stories recognized. The “At Home” mosaic was one of the Collective’s projects initiated to strengthen our resilience and provide hope. I am so proud to see it unveiled.”
The project was supported by funding from the City of North Vancouver, North Van Arts, United Way of the Lower Mainland, North Vancouver Recreation & Culture Commission, Family Services of the North Shore, and North Shore Neighbourhood House.
Public Art Sharing Community COVID-19 Stories
The project was created in two phases, with phase one consisting of a digital mosaic of community-submitted artwork, facilitated by local visual artist Sandrine Pelissier and expressive art therapist Sophie Babeanu; and phase two, a public art piece created and executed by visual artist Blake Williams.
Phase one invited people who live, work, or play in the City of North Vancouver to share their personal COVID-19 stories through images and words on the project’s website at northvancitymosaic.ca during ‘stay at home’ orders in 2020 to provoke conversation and experience multi-generational interactions, while staying socially distanced.
Each of the individual art pieces submitted were combined to create a digital mosaic image of hands in the shape of a heart located in the City of North Vancouver’s Shipyard District.
The second phase of the project selected 200 images shared on the digital mosaic, including community member drawings, paintings and photographs, to form a public art piece representing hope and resiliency. AT HOME’s metal forms mimic individual houses, each socially distanced six feet apart.
A digital flip book has been created of the 700+ images and stories submitted by the community to share these stories for years to come, and is viewable at northvanarts.ca/events-exhibitions/northvancitymosaic.
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