This project will help create a beautiful, lasting and popular public artwork display for both locals and visitors to enjoy, while driving visitors and economic activity into an under visited part of Salt Spring’s downtown core. Working with their community partner, the Salt Spring Arts Council, the Chamber of Commerce will bring together mural artists, business owners, and the public to select inspiring and eye-catching designs that encourage people to visit the east side of Fulford-Ganges Road (away from the waterfront) and to help support the many small shops and cafes lining Hertford and McPhillips avenues.
The project concept will be to create five, professional and thought-provoking murals painted directly onto surfaces that are presently derelict and shabby. The call for proposals will invite professional Canadian and First Nations mural artist to submit design suggestions based on the theme of sustainability, reciprocity, and creativity in the context of community and the land acknowledgement of living on the share, traditional, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples.
Island Coastal Economic Trust approved funding for this project in 2021 through the Community Placemaking program.
We work in reciprocal relationships with coastal communities across the ancestral territories of the Kwak̓wala, Nuučaan̓uɫ, Éy7á7juuthem, Ligwilda'xw, Pəntl'áč, She shashishalhem, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Hul’q’umi’num’, diitiidʔaatx̣, SENĆOŦEN, Lekwungen, and T’Sou-ke speaking peoples.