Consultation results for controversial Vernon, B.C. mural project released – Okanagan | Canadian

The results of a public consultation on a controversial Vernon, B.C. mural project are in and were presented to Vernon city council on Monday.

The Vernon Public Art Gallery, which is spearheading the “Behind the Mask” project, says roughly 65 per cent of city residents that responded to its consultation approved or strongly approved of the art.

Meanwhile, over 30 per cent disapproved or strongly disapproved. The remainder were neutral.

But some councillors questioned why the art gallery only accepted feedback in person at the gallery and not online.

“It does have an exclusionary element to it,” said councillor Kari Gares.

“There are individuals within the community that do have mobility issues that quite frankly may not have the ability to attend the art gallery to provide their feedback.”

However, the art gallery defended its process and pointed out that both sides of the issue would face the same limitation.

“This is a public art project. I think it is important for people to come and actually experience it first hand before they can effectively have an opinion about it,” said gallery board chair Andrew Powell.

After flip-flopping on its original approval of the project, it will now, once again, be up to Vernon city council to decide if the murals should go ahead and in what form.

The proposed murals depict local residents wearing masks they helped create and are meant to generate public discussion on mental health.

However, they’ve also generated intense public debate and duelling petitions for and against the project.

More than 4,000 people have signed an online petition called “Say no to Vernon[‘s] scary new murals.”

Criticism included the lack of public consultation and the involvement of a Calgary artist in the project along with local participants.

Meanwhile, more than 1,600 people have signed a petition in support of the proposed murals arguing that “they represent a missing local perspective.”

Council had originally given the art gallery the go-ahead to install 11 large-scale images on the sides of local buildings, but in light of the controversy put the project on hold pending public consultations.

On Monday, the art gallery argued not forging ahead with the project could make the art gallery look flaky.

Powell pointed out the mural project has received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.

“That’s not easy to do. It’s important and it is a very real feather in our cap,” Powell said.

“If we don’t proceed with this project, it jeopardizes our relationship with Canada Council [for the Arts], it jeopardized our reputation in the eyes of the art facility community. Both of those things could have significant impacts on not just our future projects, but our operational funding opportunities going forward.”

The art gallery is hoping the city green lights the project as it was originally proposed, but has suggested a number of possible changes if the council wants to limit the scope of the project.

Those changes could include having the murals up for three years instead of five or decreasing the number of murals.

Council is expected to make a decision on the murals at its next meeting and the gallery says if given the go-ahead, it will install the art piece right away.

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