PLACEMAKING
CITY CENTRE ARTIST LODGE
In 2021 VMF assembled a talented team to reimagine the exterior of Mount Pleasant’s iconic City Centre Motel. We see the immersive artwork as a pilot for arts-driven placemaking and a vision for how underused and transitional spaces can reflect the culture of a place while inspiring the next phases of use and development.
In 2016, the City Centre Motel was home to several of Vancouver Mural Festival’s very first murals. Fast forward to 2022—and over 300 murals later—KC Hall, Fiona Ackerman and Joon Lee have created the largest mural we’ve produced to date. The exterior facades and parking lot are a skillful collage of traditional North Coast Formline, contemporary abstract work, graffiti and floral patterns. The colourful work is tied together with bold gradients and a palette that incorporates some of the old motel colours.
This project was sponsored by Nicola Wealth Real Estate, the proprietors of the site. VMF worked alongside The Narrow Group who made 79 motel rooms available as studio spaces to over 100 practicing artists and creatives. For more information about tenancy at the City Centre Artist Lodge, please follow this link.
About The Work
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VMF seeks to create meaningful experiences that connect art and people, in order to build a society that deeply values art and culture. With the right vision and talent, a layer of paint can turn a parking lot into a unique space for gathering and public events.
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VMF is committed to elevating and supporting underrepresented and marginalized communities and artists. Diversity and inclusivity are at the core of our values. This is reflected across the mural artists and performance artists we work with.
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Placemaking is the process of shaping spaces to strengthen the connections between people and places. VMF takes an arts-driven approach to placemaking, working with local creatives and neighbourhood stakeholders to collectively reimagine public space as the heart of every community.
Reimagining the Present and Future
The City Centre site is slated for redevelopment and will be temporarily repurposed until that time. While this project is only temporary, it utilizes a space that would otherwise sit empty and transforms it into a dynamic (and otherwise unavailable) space for artists and the community. We invite you to experience and envision what’s possible with us.
Artist Studios & Events
The Narrow Group have converted the former motel rooms into low-cost artist studios, now called the City Centre Artist Lodge. Watch for community events throughout the year.
LOCATION
CITY CENTRE ARTIST LODGE
2111 Main St, Vancouver, BC,V5T 3C6
Timeline
Late 2021
Nicola Wealth Real Estate (NWRE) acquires the City Centre Motel
Dec 2021
NWRE, Narrow Group and VMF announce plans to transform the motel into a temporary artist and community space
Feb 2022
The Narrow Group converts motel into 75 artist studios (City Centre Artist Lodge).
May 2022
VMF transforms the motel exterior with our largest mural to date.
2023
More to come!
Mural and Artists
VMF is bringing the creative potential of City Centre to life by completely transforming the exterior (full building facade and parking lot) with its largest mural to-date. Designed by local artists, Fiona Ackerman, KC Hall and Joon Lee, the full-wrap mural combines the 3 artists’ styles while taking inspiration from the iconic motel’s original elements.
Bringing together vastly divergent styles and backgrounds, the artists have transformed the iconic City Centre Motel into a singular mural stretching across all of its surfaces. The artists’ approach has intentionally taken the spontaneity of hands-on art making to a massive scale to celebrate, amplify, and deconstruct the architecture of this Vancouver landmark — simultaneously looking at its aesthetics of a classic midcentury motor hotel, and its current use as temporary artist studios. Moving around the two buildings and the ground, each artist’s direction is brought into focus at different moments while tactically never relinquishing collaborative ownership from the whole. The mural becomes a mirror of what the City Centre Artist Lodge aspires to be: artists discovering each others’ working processes, being pushed in unexpected directions, and working alongside each other to shape this city.
This is the perfect example of the creative experimentation that’s possible in a temporary space.
