By Dan Lalande
Open your eyes, Ottawans: You’re living in an art gallery!
The route to where you work, the places where you enjoy your after-hours activities and the public spaces that you frequent are teeming with original creations by the top tier of the city’s visual arts community.
Yes, you’ll find these works in the city’s regional art galleries, but also at transit stations, community centres and libraries, in addition to the streets, sidewalks and parks that surround them. Almost every available inch of public space doubles as a showcase for permanent or temporary artworks.
Wait for a bus downtown and find yourself in the company of Anna Frlan’s The Navigators (Bees, Birds and Butterflies), an avian perspective on designated bus routes; stop at the Rideau West Concourse LRT station, home of Corridor 45|75, and catch Coalescence: Selections from the City of Ottawa Art Collection, a celebratory sampler of city-supported art work; travel to Kanata’s Monahan Wetlands and see Laura Taler’s recently installed MONAHAN, a 20-minute listening experience combining auditory media, nature and technology.
This city-wide vernissage is a deep, abiding commitment by the City of Ottawa Public Art Program, an initiative commemorating its 40th anniversary. In 1985, then-Mayor Marion Dewar greenlit a proposal put forth five years earlier by the visual arts policy advisory committee. The goal was to strengthen Ottawa’s visual arts community by subsidizing and displaying the works of its members, rescuing them from small or ad hoc spaces to bring them, as fully as possible, to the people.
Once a consortium of federal agencies came on board, including the National Capital Commission, the Department of Public Works, the National Gallery and the Canada Council for the Arts, local artists set about enthusiastically proposing ideas for murals, installations and other forms of aesthetic investigation.
As Katherine Ingrey, the program’s current portfolio manager explains, “The newly formed program built a base for local artworks. It created a peer selection jury process that established the City of Ottawa Art Collection, facilitated the direct purchase and commissioning of artwork and encouraged the exhibition of local and regional artists.”
The OPA, as it’s known, pays artists exhibition fees for work selected to appear at any of the city’s three municipal galleries: the City Hall Art Gallery, the Karsh-Masson Gallery and Corridor 45|75. Artwork purchased outright is bought through the OAP’s direct purchase program. The money comes from municipal coffers, including one percent collected from all new eligible development projects with a construction budget of over $2 million. Occasionally, the program also receives offers of money or artwork from interested donors.
The peer assessment jury behind it all judges existing or proposed work based on artistic merit, regional importance, innovation, conservation and maintenance requirements.
The program has proven such a success, it currently holds more artwork than it can display. To address this conundrum, a Recent Additions to the City of Ottawa Art Collection exhibition is held annually at one of the three regional gallery spaces. And this year, there’s that additional, celebratory exhibition called Coalescence. Featuring reproductions of 40 artworks, it’s a tribute to the artists who have contributed to the success of the program over the past 40 years.
The show runs through July 6 and you’ll find Corridor 45|75, an underground art space, at the Rideau Station on the O-Train Line 1, in the West Concourse – Level 2 near the Rideau Centre entrance. It’s accessible through the Sussex Drive and Rideau Street entrances, and admission is free.
“The talent in this city is amazing,” says Ingrey. “Making artwork accessible to everyone in every walk of life is such a great contribution to the city, one that’s necessary for the future.”
