Image Credit: SUBMITTED: Vernon Public Art Gallery
June 13, 2022 - 3:54 PM
In a u-turn move, Vernon council has blocked its "scary" mural project and sent it for public consultation.
At today's council meeting, June 13, council voted unanimously that the Behind the Mask murals should be put on hold until public consultation took place.
The murals have been a point of controversy since Vernon council approved spending $33,000 on placing roughly 10 murals around the city. The art was planned to be up for five years.
The art focuses on mental health and involved workshops where participants made paper mache masks and were then photographed wearing the masks at different places in downtown Vernon.
After council approved the public art project, a petition quickly garnered 3,700 signatures in opposition to placing the art around the city.
Some said the art was ugly and likely to scare children.
A less successful counter-petition then launched and gained 1,200 signatures in favour of the art.
Vernon councillor Akbal Mund proposed the new motion and said council had to listen to the community.
"The scope of this project may be too large for what the community is ready for," Coun. Mund said.
He estimated roughly 70 per cent were against the murals, while 30 per cent favoured them.
Coun. Scott Anderson said he'd like to congratulate the people who made the masks and then modelled for the photographs.
"I hope that they know that this discussion is not about them, it's about the process of picking public art in Vernon," Coun. Anderson said.
"The argument that art should challenge the viewer and sometimes make the viewer uncomfortable has merit, but it has merit only within the context of choice... unlike pieces in a public art gallery... these murals will be seen whether the viewer likes it or not," he said. "The point to me is not what the murals mean or whether they are good or bad or creepy or pretty... what matters to me is the utter lack of public consultation."
With Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming, and councillors Brian Quiring and Kelly Fehr away from the meeting, the four remaining members all agreed more consultation needed to be done.
Councillor Kari Gares said she'd been "disheartened" by some of the comments made against the murals.
"Some of the comments have been.... comments that I would hope my community would not share so publicly, these are people with real feelings, real emotions, to call them scary, demonic," Coun. Gares said. "Vernon might not be ready for a project such as this, and that's not such a bad thing... this is a very unique project, it jumped out of the scope of what people are used to seeing."
Coun. Teresa Durning also said she too was disappointed at many of the comments, describing them as "unprofessional" and "unfounded." She said she didn't want to lose the project.
Council also agreed it shouldn't be the city that had to pay for a public consultation.
Ultimately, council voted to send the project back to the Vernon Public Art Gallery for public consultation.
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