Using street furniture as a canvas for art

I’m in Calgary right now, visiting my family, and despite the frigid weather (it’s 17 degrees below zero as I write this) I’ve tried my best to wander around town. It’s been a year since my last brief visit and even in that short time the city has changed considerably, which is exactly what you would expect of the fastest-growing and most economically robust metropolitan area in Canada. Despite all of the new condo towers, office developments and high-concept retail stores, though, one thing that has really caught my attention has been the way Calgary has transformed ordinary street furniture into public art.

As part of a city-funded intiative called Art in Motion (which seems to be an extension of a similar project that displayed art on Calgary’s buses and trains), local artists have been given space to display their art on Calgary’s traffic control boxes, which are found on the sidewalk next to every traffic light. It’s a great way to beautify street furniture, prevent tagging and promote local art. It also enriches the pedestrian environment by adding another layer of interest to the streetscape; like any sort of public art, it has the potential to distract you, if only momentarily, from your everyday worries.

Flickr user Floating Imitations has some nice photos documenting the transformation of an ordinary traffic control box into a canvas for art; according to him, the project has not been publicized by the city, even though it encompasses more than 70 boxes around the city centre.

This is something I would like to see in Montreal. Last fall, I suggested that Montreal’s traffic control boxes (which are smaller than those in Calgary, and mounted on the sides of traffic lights, instead of planted in the sidewalk) could be used as legal postering space. Art in Motion is another idea that we could adopt to make good use of an overlooked piece of street furniture. We’ve got the space, so why not do something useful with it?