Winter Program Guide 2020

PUBLICART

PUBLIC ART | COMMUNITY MOSAIC

THE MAPLE RIDGE COMMUNITY MOSAIC

The Maple Ridge Community Mosaic celebrates the Leisure Centre as an important social hub and will be officially unveiled at the opening of the Leisure Centre in the new year. In February 2019, artists Rebecca Bayer and David Gregory gathered and documented over 500 unique geometric patterns fromcommunity members at artist-run workshops. Bayer and Gregory carefully combined these patterns to create a vibrant representation of the interconnections between people and place in the Maple Ridge community, signifying community, togetherness and the interdependence of parts within a whole. In cultures all around the world, patterned tiles and geometric patterns are used in public spaces to indicate use, provide way-finding, add beauty, encourage social interaction and inspire thoughts. The Maple Ridge Community Mosaic is a colourful and complex artwork that creates a unique landmark that can be experienced in a variety of ways and intuitively locates visitors within the building. The mosaic is arranged within a grid of equilateral triangles. Symbolically, triangles represent the strongest natural shape. Any added force is evenly spread through all three sides and then distributed outward to neighbouring triangles. Like cells and crystals, and individuals within a community, each triangle gains even greater strength when they are organized together with other individuals to form a greater whole. Geometrically, equilateral triangles provide many shape and pattern possibilities; they can create both linear and radial patterns, and can be arranged into hexagons, stars, diamonds, zig-zags, curves, and other shapes. The Maple Ridge Community Mosaic has been designed to fit within three different locations in the newly renovated Leisure Centre: at reception lobby, in the gathering area, and the pool shower wall - covering a total of 410 square feet. The artwork is fabricated from over 14,000 custom-made triangular ceramic tiles manufactured locally using recycled glass powder mixed with clay. A palette of twelve custom colours was developed by the artists based on photographs of the Maple Ridge landscape submitted by residents.

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