The Yukon’s Department of Tourism and Culture is hunting for nine pieces of original art by nine different artists or groups of artists to adorn the new gateway signs at nine key entry points to the territory.
The department has put out a call for artists to submit proposals for artwork designs that represent the territory’s “culture, history and natural beauty.”
The selected art will be showcased on the middle panel of the newly designed aluminum-clad signs that will be fabricated and installed around the Yukon later this year. The overall sign design is based on the Yukon brand. It features the word “Yukon” in white text across a backdrop of midnight-sun-yellow and dark-sky-blue mountain ranges on the top portion and a complementary colour for the bottom.
“The integrated art is intended to promote a sense of place, pride and community. Designs should reflect the theme of ‘Welcome to the Yukon’,” reads a government press release issued on Jan. 24.
Rebecca Jansen is the department’s lead on the new signs. Jansen spoke with the News by phone on Jan. 24.
“We’re just really looking forward to seeing the creativity and the ideas that people come forward with,” she said.
Jansen anticipates the art will be swapped out every five years or so, depending on factors like how the panels hold up.
Creative work open to submission this time around includes photography, illustrations, paintings, drawings, carving, textile, sewing and beadwork. The art will be displayed in a digitized form that fits the panel.
Submissions are limited to individuals or collaborations of professional or emerging artists who have lived in the Yukon for at least a year.
Per the submission guidelines, the call is open to “Yukon artists,” which includes but is not limited to “Indigenous, Black and racialized people; newcomers and immigrants; 2SLGBTQIA; people with (dis)abilities; and those with low-incomes or living in poverty.”
The guidelines define “Yukon artists” as “Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada who currently reside in the Yukon and have lived in the Yukon for at least one continuous year prior to the closing date.”
Art will be chosen by four subcommittees made up of visual artists, tourism operators and community members connected to four regions to address regional representation for the sign locations.
Those regions cover the north, south, east and west. The northern region includes the Top of the World Highway and the Dempster Highway locations, the western region includes Beaver Creek and Haines Road, the eastern region the Alaska Highway at the British Columbia-Yukon border and the Stewart-Cassiar Highway and the southern region includes the South Klondike Highway, Atlin Road and the Whitehorse airport.
Originality and artistic merit, alignment with the theme, content appropriate for all ages, previous experience and quality of work and overall scale, format and size, visibility and content clarity are listed as selection criteria.
Selected artists will be paid $6,000 per sign design.
But some Yukoners aren’t ready for novel signage.
Long-time resident Art Webster, who lives in Whitehorse, summarized his opposition in a recent letter to the News editor under this title: “No need for new signs.”
Geraldine Van Bibber, the Official Opposition Yukon Party’s tourism and culture critic, wants to keep the big old wooden signs. She disapproves of the new design, mainly because she doesn’t believe it creates a unified Yukon brand.
While specific feedback on the decision to embark on new signs hasn’t reached Jansen’s desk, she acknowledged that questions and curiousity are expected. She said that feedback is being taken seriously.
“I would be a little more nervous if there was no reaction,” she said.
“Once people see the artwork incorporated within the new signs, they’re going to be able to kind of see themselves in the Yukon, and our history and culture displayed through these signs. Hopefully, it’ll be something that people can be proud of.”
To submit a proposal, artists must fill out a form and provide an artist biography or curriculum vitae, a portfolio and two concept sketches, according to the guidelines. The deadline to submit is 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 26.
The signs will be installed from June to September.
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com