Your face could become part of a public art project that's making waves around the world. All Royal City residents - whatever your age, race, background or station in life - are being invited to take part in Stop&Stare, a new participatory community art project.
The project is being organized locally by New West resident Neal Michael, supported by the Inside Out Project. The project is the creation of artist JR, who came up with the idea of transforming individual messages of personal identity into broader pieces of art work.
Individual, black-and-white portraits of participants' faces are turned into 36-by-53-inch posters and then shipped back to the local leader, who uses the portraits to create one large piece of artwork in a public space - a park, a wall, a neglected building, a parking lot or anywhere else that works.
"I love the simplicity of it," Michael says. "Some of the locations are just magnificent."
There is, for instance, a project at the North Pole, featuring more than a thousand portraits of members of the Save the Arctic movement. There's another project called Soldiers Smiling for Justice, which works to bring a human face to the army in Yerevan, Armenia. Yet another is dubbed We Still Exist, featuring Lakota Tribe members in North Dakota.
So far, more than 120,000 people from 108 countries have taken part.
Locally, Michael is hoping to see Timber Wharf - the as-yet-undeveloped large expanse of bare asphalt next to the new Westminster Pier Park - house the portrait display.
The idea is being tested first, however, since the portraits would be on display on the ground, and the city has to ensure that the idea would be safe and secure.
Michael's own portrait has been on display in the lot as a test, although it's temporarily vanished - it's not yet known who took it or where it went.
Michael hopes the location will work out.
"It would be kind of fun for kids to jump on the posters," he says - but either way, it's definitely going ahead, and the location will be finalized later.
Michael says he'd love to see 100 local residents taking part in the project. Twenty have already signed up, and - with help from funding from the Vancouver Foundation - local organizers are hoping to offer 30 other spots to people who might not be able to afford the $20 requested donation to have their portrait done. He's hoping those spots might go to youth, seniors and people in need in the community, to help make the project as truly representative as possible.
"The end result is a great one," he says. "We just try to do things in the city to add a little fun, bring people together."
There's no restrictions on who can take part - the basic rule is just "one face, one poster."
Anyone who wants to take part in the local event can sign up at www.stopandstarenw.event brite.com by Aug. 16. A photo shoot day is being set for Aug. 28. Anyone who wants to participate
in the project who can't make that day is welcome to take their own photo and submit it - but they're still asked to sign up and to check out the restrictions about what the photo must be like.
Anyone with questions is welcome to email Neal Michael at [email protected].
For more on the Inside Out Project, see www.insideoutproject.net.
