Engaging with art is an incredibly rewarding, inspiring & connective experience - especially when you're creating it! We're thrilled to offer the community opportunities to help create temporary public art. Through open calls for expressions of interest, professional artists are commissioned to design innovative & interactive art pieces that will live outdoor, near the Silk Purse for a limited time. Whether murals or sculptures, these works of art aren't complete until you add your creative touch. Everyone is welcome to join in the art making process; engaging the artwork & it's themes; learning some artistic skills; exploring your creativity; & connecting with community.

IN YOUR HANDS
August 5-September 5, 2021

This year's Community Art Project reminds us that the future of our waters & lands is in our hands. Artist Jenny Smith has designed a beautiful sculpture of two cupped hands emerging from the earth in John Lawson Park next to the Silk Purse, like an early spring/barren tree, ready for members of the community to bring it into its summer as they embellish it with the fruits of their imaginations.

In Your Hands empowers the audience by making them participants in the artwork by physically finishing it. In this case, adorning the sculpture with symbolic objects which they have sourced from the West Vancouver shoreline that they feel comprise what we, as a community, are cultivating for our climate. By doing so, the notion is instilled that we are all artists of our reality & we receive what we contribute. Some items may include oyster shells, styrofoam, beach glass, small pieces of driftwood or anything else you can find.

The sculpture was composed of recycled & eco-friendly materials, salvaged from local construction sites that will be upcycled/recycled at the end of the project.

In Your Hands debuted Thursday, August 5 during the First Thursdays Art Walk.

Community Collaboration Events were held weekends throughout August into September, allowing creative & curious members of the community to engage with & participate in the completion of the sculpture. Once the project was complete all materials were properly disposed of or recycled.

Jenny Smith is a self-taught artist, sculptor & writer. Inspired by her grandfather who was an environmental activist that built an enterprise supporting his forthcoming generations through salvaging scraps (with an emphasis on stained glass scraps), her work has shifted focus from figurative oil on canvases to using found materials that are oftentimes considered refuse. Her work has been represented by Yeats Gallery, commissioned by Canadian politicians & celebrities, as well as appeared in Canadian and American Journals.