March 9, 2021 – Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority and Bridging North America held a public meeting to provide the public with an opportunity to meet the artist and provide feedback on an artistic commission being integrated into the Canadian Port of Entry (POE).
Providing a welcoming experience for travellers using the Gordie Howe International Bridge is a priority for the project’s design team. This includes ensuring structures and buildings are visually appealing, unique and memorable. An artist has been selected to provide an artistic design to the exterior panels of the maintenance building at the Canadian Port of Entry.
This artistic commission is part of a larger effort to incorporate public art and other forms of cultural and historical recognition into the project, based on continued community engagement.
About The Commission
The maintenance building at the Canadian Port of Entry (POE) is situated near the traffic route for vehicles accessing the Gordie Howe International Bridge to the US, and can also be seen in a limited view from traffic entering Canada. While the exterior of the building is visible to passing traffic, pedestrian access is limited to POE staff.
The Artist has an opportunity to provide a design that will be integrated into the façade of the building, by manipulating the building’s cladding system. The design will be achieved through inscribed imagery or bas relief using concrete form liners. Colour will be used to further accentuate the design.
The design of the final commission will be shared at a future public meeting.
About the Artist:
Sara Graham hails from southern Ontario and is currently based in Port Moody, British Columbia. She holds a BFA (1997) from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an MFA (2006) from the University of Guelph. She has exhibited her work across North America and has also undertaken several public art commissions with the most recent one installed in Richmond, BC in 2020.
Ms. Graham is specifically engaged in a cross-disciplinary artistic practices and theoretical approaches that incorporate philosophical, cultural, sociological and architectural criticism of the nature and condition of the city and city life. One of Ms. Graham’s central engagements in her practice is in the mapping of systems and networks and how their interconnectivity affects everyday lives. Learn more about her work at http://mkg127.com/artists-mkg/sara/..
