Urban Design Roster Program

This program offers artists and designers an opportunity to be involved in civic urban design and small-scale artwork related to city infrastructure. The Urban Design Roster is a list of artists who wish to be contacted to work with the City’s Public Art team and other City departments such as Traffic/Transportation, Engineering and Public Works. Projects are activated on an ongoing basis, in relation to opportunities arising from infrastructure renewals, upgrades and maintenance.

2022 Projects

Hidden Messages

Active Transportation and Culture have partnered on Hidden Messages, a new project to bring poetry to city paths, trails and walkways. This project pairs design studio Webb Creative with Nanaimo’s Poet Laureate, Kamal Parmar, to create disappearing poems spread across the City at ten locations:

Activated by water, the poems reveal themselves on rainy days, encouraging folks to get out and explore the City's growing network for cyclists and pedestrians in all kinds of weather.  If sunny days keep the words hidden, use your mobile device to listen to an audio clip of the poem using the accompanying QR code link, read aloud by the Poet Laureate!

Surfacing

A new mural for the washrooms at Maffeo Sutton Park / Swy-a-Lana. This new surface treatment to cover the walls of the washroom block in Maffeo Sutton Park is painted by Curtis Van Charles Sorenson.  The four sides of the building are a series of local coastal landscapes and animals, inspired by the wild parks and natural settings of Nanaimo. The fields, lands, animals and plant life are translated through a stylized palette combined with corner break-out sections of black and white graphic elements.   

Poems for Windows

For this yearlong series of poetry posters, the Poet Laureate asked for contributions by local community members and the public. A mixture of poems are created and then designs for the posters made by design roster participant Webb Creative. This short term project responded to the conditions of COVID-19 to ensure there would be safe opportunities for the community to connect with poetry as a creative outlet. Poems are presented in civic facilities and shop windows around town. 

Utility Bin Covers 

Design by Emily Thiessen 

Design by Robert Plante

2021 Projects