A city bus is about to become a mobile canvas.
City officials have held informal meetings with local artists, encouraging them to submit designs for the bus and said the moving showcase will be in place for a year.
“It’s really a way to incorporate high-quality local art into the daily experience of citizens and visitors to Thunder Bay, said Leah Bayly, the city’s supervisor of cultural services and events.
“We’re going to have a great moving showcase with professional art on the outside of the bus and the whole spectrum through children’s art to professional art on the inside as well.”
Bayly says the idea spawned from a similar program in Vancouver and has quickly drawn the attention of Thunder Bay’s artistic community.
“This is something really unique for us. We’ve never done anything like this before in Thunder Bay and because this is a two-dimensional activity, it’ll really open up to a wide spectrum of artists – whereas when we do sculptural projects, for example, it’s a little bit narrower.”
The city hopes to unveil the bus by early summer and say it will be put to extra use as a shuttle for special events, which could include Canada Day and the Thunder Bay Blues Festival.
The competition closes on April 27 when artist designs must be submitted to the city. From there the winning design will be digitally printed and applied to the bus with a wrap.
“The artist doesn’t have to get involved in that part. They just have to do the design for us.”
Bayly said the maximum budget for the project is $20,000.
Thunder Bay Transit spokesman Jon Hendl called it a great opportunity and a win-win for everyone.
“You’ve got great public exposure for Transit, where sometimes with the white bus rolling through the city, you just get used to. Now with exciting art being wrapped around the whole vehicle, you might take a second look just to see what’s going on,” Hendl said.
“We’re happy to support this project.”
He added they already starting delving into artistic endeavours on city buses, adding poetry to the interior of some vehicles.
“We’ve got great feedback from our passengers with that project. We can see there is an interest an need for artistic culture in the community. We see that growing throughout our community as well, public art appreciation.”
