It’s unlikely an “iconic” piece of public art will be installed on New Westminster’s waterfront before the end of the year.
Earlier this year, New Westminster city council agreed to proceed with three installations as part of the Vancouver Biennale. The plan would have seen Blue Trees by Konstantin Dimopolous on Columbia Street, Public Furniture/Urban Trees by Hugo Franca installed at a to-be-determined location and WOW New Westminster by Jose Resende located at Westminster Pier Park.
Along with being the most controversial of the three installations, WOW New Westminster is also proving to be the most complicated.
“It’s unfortunate. At the moment there is not much progress,” said Ammar Mahimwalla, Vancouver Biennale’s projects coordinator of the open-air museum. “We haven’t had a contract from the city yet so we haven’t been able to go ahead with any of the installations for New West to participate with Vancouver, Squamish and North Vancouver.”
As the year winds down, Mahimwalla said it’s too ambitious to think WOW New Westminster will be able to be installed before 2015.
“Originally in our planning it was supposed to be late October, after the Wait for Me Daddy and the Anvil Centre, because of course all the city resources were behind those two projects. They are great projects. We thought after that we would be able to focus solely on WOW New Westminster and the other two pieces for the Biennale,” he said. “Now it is looking like we are going to have to move into next spring.”
Dean Gibson, the city’s director of parks, culture and recreation, said the Vancouver Biennale needs to satisfy some technical requirements before the city can sign a contract to allow WOW New Westminster to be erected at Westminster Pier Park. WOW New Westminster consists of four shipping containers positioned in two V shapes, which would be located on the section of the park that remains on the original piles.
“We have been going back and forth with the Biennale and their engineers, just to determine the precise location for where they are proposing for this to go, and then whether the design itself can be supported by the existing timber wharf,” he said. “There are some sections of that wharf that are in better condition than others. We have been working through that process with the Biennale. Until we have finished that, none of the projects are going ahead, simply because we were not prepared to sign a project agreement until we have worked out that particular detail.”
Gibson said the city is unable to commit to an agreement until this matter is sorted out.
“It’s not saying we are not going to get there,” he told The Record. “At this stage of the game, we have met on site with the Biennale and their engineers and our city’s engineering staff to work through exactly what it needs before the city is able to sign off on this.”
Mahimwalla said the Vancouver Biennale has provided the city with a couple sets of drawings about proposed locations for WOW New Westminster. When the project was first proposed, he said the Vancouver Biennale didn’t know about the city’s plans to build an urban beach and sandbox at Westminster Pier Park.
“Originally it was a wide open area,” he said. “So that constrained things.”
As part of the process of selecting the spot that WOW Vancouver will be installed, Mahimwalla said the Vancouver Biennale has been relying on a consultant’s report commissioned by the city that assessed the condition of the timber wharf.
Because of the delays in signing a contract with the city, Mahimwalla said the three projects would be erected in quick succession starting in the spring. He’s still hopeful the project will proceed in the new year as there’s a lot of positive energy associated with the projects and he’s spoken to local residents wanting to when WOW Vancouver will arrive on the waterfront.
“It’s iconic,” he said. “Already it’s in people’s minds.”
The city’s 2014 budget includes $90,000 for Vancouver Biennale projects, funds the Vancouver Biennale staff say doesn’t even begin to cover the cost of the installations planned for New Westminster. In addition to “open-air museums” featuring public art, Vancouver Biennale includes an education program, an international artists residency program, a charity bike ride, a lecture series, and a documentary arts cinema initiative.
