Public Art Project @DearCityCanada
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
PATTISON Outdoor and Spacing Magazine have announced the second annual Dear City Canada, the successful cross-Canada public art project about the cities Canadians inhabit from July 14 to August 10, 2014.
Dear City Canada is part of PATTISON’s ongoing Art in Transit programme.
Canadians can Tweet their pride, joy, opinions, criticisms and suggestions about their city to @DearCityCanada by June 30th. They can join other urbanists in a public dialogue about the issues affecting their daily lives in the cities they inhabit. The tweeted ‘love letter’ (140 characters) will be shared with the rest of Canada.
To take part, Tweets must begin by indicating your city, “@DearCityCanada Dear [name of the tweeter’s city] …” The deadline to tweet such urban love letters to @DearCityCanada is June 30, 2014.
“Dear City Canada was such a success last year that we couldn’t wait to bring it back and expand the project beyond billboards,” says Sharon Switzer, national arts programmer and curator, Pattison Onestop. “This year Dear City Canada will appear across the country on digital billboards, as well as on screens in shopping malls and office buildings, on two transit systems, and the Calgary Airport. Spacing is the perfect partner for this project because of its commitment to civic dialogue and creative approach into civic engagement. I can’t wait for all those urban love letters to start coming in to @DearCityCanada.”
“Dear City Canada art project successfully demonstrates an alternative use of screens in public spaces and presents an innovative means to communicate peoples’ ideas about their hometown or adopted city of residence,” says Matthew Blackett, publisher and editor, Spacing. “Dear City Canada complements Spacing’s vision to create a forum of positive dialogue about cities in which people express their civic affection.”
From July 14 until August 10, 2014 selected letters submitted by participants will be shared on PATTISON Onestop’s network of screens and PATTISON Outdoor’s digital billboards across Canada. These will include the following:
- PATTISON Outdoor digital billboards in nine cities across Canada including: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax;
- Screens in 190 office buildings across the country, and in 700 residential buildings in Ontario and British Columbia;
- More than 300 shopping malls screens across Canada;
- Screens in the Calgary Airport;
- PATTISON Onestop transit screens in Toronto and Edmonton;
- And retweeted via @DearCityCanada.
Only letters to the digital billboard location cities will be seen in the respective cities. Letters to Quebec cities must be in French due to Quebec French language laws.
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