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$300K sculpture approved for future Clayton Community Hub

The raspberry-coloured steel sculpture stands over 6 metres tall
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A $300,000 sculpture has been approved by city council for the future site of the Clayton Community Hub.

Studio Morison, which is a collaborative team of artists Heather Peak and Ivan Morison, will go forward with their proposal for a piece entitled “The Moment.” The permanent sculpture stands more than six metres tall and is made of “bright raspberry” coloured steel.

If you’re wondering what the sculpture is supposed to be, you’re not alone.

According to an artist statement on the City of Surrey website, the sculpture invites the question: what is it?

“As you move around and within the piece, it continually reveals and confuses its own form, alive and full of potentiality,” the statement reads. “From each angle, a different interpretation emerges: a net, a web, a flower turning its head to the sun, a make-believe creature waiting to play with a friend, a tower leaning over to listen to the people below. It is an outline to ‘colour in,’ inviting the community to fill it with their own imaginations.”

Studio Morison researched and developed their design concept from January to April 2018.

According to a May 24 corporate report, the team “engaged nearly 300 residents and stakeholders in Clayton to develop their proposed design concept for a permanent public artwork.”

The sculpture was inspired by a Margaret Atwood poem of the same name “that questions individual ownership and speaks to the concept of ‘the commons’ at the heart of the Clayton Community Centre and civic life in general.”

The Clayton Community Hub stakeholder committee reviewed and unanimously approved the design proposal on April 25, and Surrey’s Public Art Advisory Committee endorsed it at its May 3 meeting.

The $300,000 price tag includes the artist fees, engineering, fabrication and installation of the sculpture. In total, it represents 1.25 per cent of the community centre’s projected construction budget. The total budget for the centre is $43.5 million.

Councillor Judy Villeneuve, who is chair of the Public Art Advisory Committee, spoke at last Monday’s council meeting about the project.

The Moment had “really amazing involvement from over 300 residents that talked about what they wanted to see in the public art piece,” she said.

“The piece is … up to the interpretation of the community. They wanted to be able to have moments where they can think creatively and use their imagination,” she said.

“I think its going to be a stunning new piece in our city collection,” she said.

The sculpture is expected to be ready for unveiling in 2020, to coincide with the opening of the community centre, located at 72 Avenue between 184 and 188 Street.



editor@cloverdalereporter.com

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