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“They’re 10 local and Canadian artists … working with local business — fabricators, engineers and installers,” said Thompson.
The investment is being made, she said, at a time when local artists’ livelihoods are being crushed by the pandemic and the economic downturn.
“This contributes to the economy in a city with a major national arts school and with a sector that’s been hit severely by COVID-19,” said Thompson.
The project was legally contracted in 2017, just before controversy over other sculptures led to a freeze on the city’s art program and a subsequent review of it, she said.
The Wandering Island features six different pieces, including a stairway that leads into it, a pair of sun loungers, carved boulders for sitting, a bench, a pair of wheelbarrows and texts meditating on water and memory.
They’re part of the rehabilitation of the Elbow River and its fish habitat following the 2013 flood, says the city.
“The artists consulted with a number of subject matter experts including ecologists, river engineers, Indigenous elders and members of the Moh’kinsstis Public Art Guiding Circle,” says a statement from the city.
In describing their project called Late Lunch featuring a pair of up-tilted wheelbarrows that can be used as a resting spot, artists Jeremy Pavka and Sean Procyk say it “captures the condition of necessity; utilitarian tools transformed into objects for leisure. The work aligns with the common experience of encountering the traces of human refuse in and around naturalized areas.”
