New Westminster glass mural, Sean Alward, New Westminster SkyTrain entrance (START)

The Fraser River is the defining natural feature determining New Westminster’s existence as a city and as a much older First Nations settlement. The design of the glass mural is inspired by the Fraser River and the simple paradox that it is an ever-changing yet constant presence. The images in the mural refer to the implications of this paradox in relation to historical memory and life in New Westminster now.

The mural design is composed of two main elements: black and white archival photographs of early New Westminster and overlays of brightly coloured shapes. The photos are of local flora and fauna, associated human industry, and city infrastructure. Their interaction embodies the transformation of “nature” into “resources,” and the role these resources have played in the development of an economy, political power, and culture in New Westminster. Combined with the coloured shapes, the photographic elements represent a kind of stream of consciousness, with forms flowing into one another, each thing echoing or morphing into something else. This is analogous to the way various forces transform an environment and its inhabitants into a city. These transforming agents are sometimes easy to see and sometimes they are invisible.

FLOW, Sandeep Johal, Front St Mews

Grounded in principles of symmetry and geometry, Sandeep Johal’s bold and colourful patterns on the Front Street Mews Barrier Wall are influenced by textile designs and motifs specific to her South Asian heritage.

The Telephone Salesman by Matthew Brooks at 350 Columbia St

The Telephone Salesman presents the viewer with a surreal yet mundane tableau seemingly set in a dated living room. Entirely constructed in the studio from 1960–1970s furniture and objects, the work interrogates the viewer’s sense of the real as they are presented with an ambiguous, disorderly domestic space. Set in the early 1970s, The Telephone Salesman presents a melancholic scene in which a salesman has amassed a mysterious accumulation of rotary phones in his home. Drawing upon a range of references from the histories of photography and film, the image seduces the viewer with a cinematic, psychological portrait of an absent subject. This temporary public art installation is presented in partnership with Capture Photography festival.

Birds on a Branch by Nancy Chew and Jacqueline Metz, Front St Parkade

This large-scale public art installation depicts songbirds resting on branches and is a playful counterpoint to the industrial façade of the Parkade and the working riverfront. These monumental fragments of the natural world introduce something lighthearted, gentle and domestic. The large scale mural will transform the façade of the utilitarian Parkade into an iconic image visible from Westminster Pier Park, the Fraser River and the Skybridge.

Furled Trail by Huizenga Studio, Queensborough Bus Shelter on Ewen St

Studio HUIZENGA is committed to encouraging a sense of curiosity and creativity in the everyday. We believe that art has an important role in city life: it defines public spaces and brings people together. The role of public transportation operates similarly in the urban environment, and a bus stop is nuanced in its status as landmark for gathering. It is a one-time stop on the way to somewhere else; a daily and happen-chance shelter; a place for a rest, a place to wait often, a punctuation in routine. The Queensborough Bus Shelter

both serves and meditates upon these functions, namely its definition as a non-destination means to elsewhere. Within Furled Trail, the directional slats comprising the bench, walls and roof of the structure invoke the motif of a trail. This motif is distorted through repetition, play with scale and placement; the bus stop is a pathway, tangled to represent the suspension of a journey. Additionally, the bus shelter is built for inclusivity and to improve rider experience. The space is well-lit in day and night, with a large skylight in the roof.