By Pepper Parr
January 25th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
If I were a local artist – I would be ticked at this notice. Less than ten days to put together an application that offers $20,000 for the first phase of a Call for Artists and $150,000 for the second phase.
And if I were a citizen who kept an eye on what the City administration does I’d be less than pleased to learn that there will be public art in the renovation/upgrade to Civic Square that the public has not heard about.
Here is what the Call for Artists is about,
A rendering of what Civic Square is today.
Request for Expressions of Interest, Public Art Plan (Phase 1), Civic Square Renewal
Deadline: Friday, February 2, 2024
Phase 1 Budget: $20,000
Phase 2 Budget: $150,000
Application Package: Civic Square Application Package (PDF)
Online Application: Civic Square Public Art Plan Online Application Form
The yellow borders are instructive. The yellow box right centre is the new 400 Brant Kitchen and Bar which is not part of the Civic Square renew.. The push into part of James Street is where there is supposed to be public art in front of each building on the north and south sides of James Street.
The City of Burlington invites professional artists and artist-led teams to submit credentials and expressions of interest to create a Public Art Plan for the Civic Square Renewal project. The selected artist(s) will work directly with the City’s design and architecture teams to develop a Public Art Plan for integrated, permanent public artwork(s) to be installed in Civic Square. Please note, Phase 1 of this project is for a Public Art Plan (preliminary design concept) only and does not include the engineering, fabrication, or installation of the artwork.
I find it odd that the Skyway Community Centre Art project, valued at $120,000, is on the Get Involved Burlington website https://www.getinvolvedburlington.ca/skywaypa
But I can’t find any community involvement opportunities, per the City of Burlington engagement charter, for this art project. The civic square renewal project does not mention “public art”. https://www.getinvolvedburlington.ca/civicsquare
This does call into question why we have a project to update the community engagement charter when the City ignores the current one. https://www.getinvolvedburlington.ca/engagement-charter
This is how our City Council in Burlington loves to spend money on all kinds of unnecessary items and projects!! Each of these numerous projects adds dollars to our Property Tax bills. This is not needed and Not a necessary!!
More waste of our money.
Hope its not going to be the same artist’s that put a Canada Post mailbox with a piece of wreckage from the space shuttle challenger smashed into the top located at Pine & Brant last summer; so many people complained that the city covered it up and eventually hauled it away. No respect.