We! by Anna Jane McIntyre, a mural celebrating diversity within the ÷ČÓ°Ö±˛Ą Community is now featured on the exterior south wall of the Queen’s Athletics and Recreation Centre. The 9.08 by 3.4 metre piece was commissioned through the Advocacy Coalition Mural project, a collaboration between the Office of the Principal and Vice-Chancellor and the student-led Queen’s University Advocacy Coalition.
Project Background
An outdoor mural featured on the south wall of the Queen’s University Athletics and Recreation Centre (ARC) is a joint commission by the student-led and the Office of the Principal. Initiated by Advocacy Coalition, the goal of the mural is to visibly illustrate the diversity of the Queen’s community and signal a future that is focused on celebration, healing, resilience, cultural diversity, and optimism. The mural is intended to be a site of unity, resistance, commemoration, and representation for marginalized and racialized students. The hope is for it to be an intersectional mural that empowers and evokes meaningful dialogue.
The mural is a creation of Montreal artist Anna Jane McIntyre and titled “We!”
McIntyre is one of three artists who presented concepts of their works to the Queen’s community during a . Once feedback was collected, the artists submitted their creations for final selection through a voting process.
McIntyre then incorporated art that was commissioned from collaborative workshops with Queen’s and Kingston community members into the original design.
Artists that presented:
is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work draws attention to human-environmental relationalities. Lurch’s paintings and sculptures are conversations on infrastructures and the spaces and places we inhabit.
is a visual artist based in Montreal with a playful practice that combines storytelling, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, performance, installation and microactivism. Her work investigates how people perceive, create and maintain their notions of self through behaviour and visual cues and is an ever-shifting visual mashup of British, Trinidadian and adopted Canadian cultural traditions.
works across new media, street art and digital design. He is a founding member of mural collective MRLTM and new media collective Gathering.
Proposed concept #1
Charmaine Lurch
Title: 'Familiar in the landscape'
Subjects: I would approach the Queens coalition group towards finding students who might be interested in being in the photo. If recruiting participants this way is not possible, other outreach options would ensue.
Photography: One of the main features is for a photograph to be taken of the subjects in the environment. A professional photographer would be hired to take the photos. I have worked with photographers such as Ebti Nabag, and Toni Hafkensheid, whose work is show here as an example of the kind of image that will be displayed. I am in contact with other photographers from the QTBIPOC community for this project.
Background: A red bricked background is shown in the mock-up, but other possible backgrounds such as the brickwork on the Isabel Bader Centre or the historic limestone architecture at Queens could be used.
Lines: The simple construction of wire/lines are used to focus attention on specific areas. These elements reminiscent of windows, direct attention, reveal, mark and highlight present presents. They bring a design element into the photo and graphically connect the students to the landscape. Both covering and revealing simultaneously, the lines create a digital mapping. Enlivened with a neon glow together these features bring a sense of energy and life to the image
Proposed concept #2
Nuff
Title: n/a
Vision: My proposed concept explores the themes of perception and perspective. Through the use of optical illusion. abstract geometry, patterns and graphic elements, the piece explores the idea that we all have different points of view and see things differently as a result. The patterns reference African textile traditions, while remaining abstract and nonspecific. By combining multiple images and effects, my aim is to create a vast, multifaceted image which allows the audience to find something new with every visit to the building. An additional layer of interactivity is added via Augmented Reality. Using either Spark AR or Artivive, the various patterns, geometric elements and illusions can come to life, moving over time, stretching, bending and becoming even more illusory. Each square animates uniquely as the camera is pointed at it. The aim is both to create a feeling of calm, grounded power and to remind people to always question their own perceptions, biases and positions, and extend empathy to others who may see things differently.