REBECCA BAYER

MERGE: Lynnmour Xá7elcha Elementary workshop results

6/1/2022

Special thanks to teacher Mr. Paul Best for sharing images of Lynnmour Xá7elcha Elementary’s own version of ‘Merge’.

Each of the ~40 students from Monique Zander’s grades 3/4 and Mr. Best’s 4/5 classes contributed multiple 3″x9″ bands of beautifully rendered blends, textures, and combinations of colours based on parts of nature they had just observed on our short walk outside. These handmade bands and their overall arrangement – thanks to Mr. Best & helpers – results in a more organic-looking version of the original public art piece!

For more on the workshop from May 10: http://www.spacemakeplace.com/merge-workshop-day-at…/

For more about ‘Merge’ acoustic barrier wall and public art project: http://www.spacemakeplace.com/…/merge-lynnmour-sound-wall/

Many thanks to all the students, teachers, and staff who made this happen

MERGE: workshop day at Lynnmour Xá7elcha Elementary

5/11/2022

I had a wonderful day yesterday at Lynnmour Xá7elcha Elementary in the District of North Vancouver. The school is right across the street from the ‘Merge’ artwork.

Last October I was contacted by teachers Paul Best and Leslie McGuire, who had heard my interview about the colourful acoustic barrier wall on CBC’s ‘On the Coast’ and invited me to visit the school and talk a bit about the project.

After a brief presentation to Monique Zander’s grades 3/4 and Mr. Best’s 4/5 classes on how the colours were chosen from references in nature, everyone went outside with pencils and notebooks in hand to notate the natural colours they could find in the ‘Merge’ neighbourhood.

Back in the auditorium, all 40 students made colourful, abstract stripes, using oil pastels to represent the found colours before arranging them into one large and fascinating conglomeration – their own version of ‘Merge’!

MERGE (2022) Rebecca Bayer, 356m x 4m, Powder-coated Aluminum Acoustic Panels

Trans-Canada Highway @ Keith Road⁠, Lynnmour, District of North Vancouver, territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: BANANA SLUG

12/8/2021

MERGE features twenty colours representing a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and Seymour River area, including the beloved Banana Slug.

One of our favourite images from the MERGE installation was taken by Jason Hardy from @solidrockfencing. Jason took this incredible photograph of an actual local Banana Slug sliding out from between panels in the Banana Slug segment just after they had been stored in a grassy area since the Spring.

Reconfiguring this section of Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) is a large and complex undertaking and not without a one or two unforeseen challenges… such as the huge lamp post that was installed immediately in front of the ‘Banana Slug’ section!

Thanks to the friendly team at @solidrockfencing and @KCIKraftConsultingInc we were able to carefully reposition the Banana Slug panel and complete the 4m tall and 356m spectrum with the Banana Slug unobstructed

@solidrockfencing

@KCIKraftConsultingInc

@NVanDistrict

MERGE (2021) Rebecca Bayer, 356m x 4m, Powder-coated Aluminum Acoustic Panels,⁠
Trans-Canada Highway @ Keith Road⁠, Lynnmour, District of North Vancouver, territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) – CBC ‘On The Coast’ interview

10/25/2021

On Thursday October 21, Rebecca spoke a bit about MERGE with Gloria Macarenko on CBC Radio ‘On The Coast’. Check out the recording here!

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-46-on-the-coast/clip/15873663-public-art-near-ironworkers-bridge

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: North Shore News

10/17/2021

Many thanks to Brent Richter and Mike Wakefield from the North Shore News for this article about ‘MERGE’ #mergesoundwall.

***

“For too long, it’s been a traffic jam through a construction site. But the bottom of The Cut is taking on a whole new look.
Artist Rebecca Bayer is putting the final touches on Merge, a 366-metre-long shock of colour stretching along Highway 1 between Mountain Highway and Fern Street.

It is one of the final pieces of the $200-million Lower Lynn Improvement Project, intended to shield the Inter River neighbourhood from highway noise. But it’s also now likely the largest single piece of public art on the North Shore.

“An acoustic barrier wall could be very mundane and boring, but my hope with the bright colours is that it is more interesting and vibrant from both sides. It can be experienced at a slow pace, but also a fairly quick pace if you’re driving along the highway, and it sort of blurs together as you drive by,” she said. “I get pretty excited by public art that really blends with the infrastructure or architecture, and it just becomes part of something that was already going to be there anyway.”

Bayer chose the 20 different colours specifically because they are found in the flora, fauna and landmarks from the Lynn Valley area. Bayer consulted with the Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre to match colours with individual species like the red-backed salamander, Pacific chorus frog and licorice fern. She then tried out different permutations to come up with the pattern that exists there today. “There is quite an amazing pocket of nature right there,” she said. “It made sense to try to work with the natural palette in some way.”

On the Inter River side, the names of the species appear on some panels, which Bayer said she hopes will enable Merge to educate as well as beautify.

Lori Phillips, the District of North Vancouver’s public art officer who helped in the selection process of Bayer for the project, said it does both. “Merge is a perfect example of the magic that can happen when artists are added to infrastructure projects. Suddenly a rather understated sound wall is transformed into a dynamic public artwork that is free and accessible for everyone to enjoy,” she said. “The District of North Vancouver’s public art program, was thrilled to partner with the [Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure] on this project and we know that the residents of Lynnmour, along with the thousands of daily commuters and travellers on Highway 1 will enjoy its masterful merge of colour and story, for years to come.”

Even as sound barriers/art canvasses go, the panels are a “world-class sound attenuation product” designed to neutralize sound, not just bounce it away from residences, said Mark Hersey, managing partner of Solid Rock Fencing, the company contracted to install the 623 panels.

Today, there are just a few gaps in the wall, which will be filled when the final panels arrive from Europe, Hersey said.
The final components of the Lower Lynn Improvement Project, including combining the Main Street and Dollarton Highway on-ramps into one with signalized traffic control, are expected to come online later this fall.”

***

Special thanks on this project go out to:
Jay Porter, BC Transportation and Infrastructure
Erin Moxton, North Vancouver District
Lori Phillips, North Vancouver Recreation & Culture
Tamsin Guppy, Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre
Rainer Kraft, KCI Kraft Consulting Inc.
Mark Hersey and Jason Hardy, Solid Rock Fencing Ltd.

***

MERGE (2021) Rebecca Bayer, 356m x 4m, Powder-coated Aluminum Acoustic Panels,⁠
Trans-Canada Highway @ Keith Road⁠, Lynnmour, District of North Vancouver, territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations

***

More info:
https://www.nsnews.com/…/massive-art-piece-adorns…

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: Colourful Transformation

9/17/2021

It’s been another productive week at MERGE. We want to offer a special thanks to Mark Hersey, Jason Hardy and the team from Solid Rock Fencing for their special attention to detail and careful installation of the 623 colourful acoustic panels.

This project is starting to transform the landscape and has already made a huge difference in reducing the traffic noise level in the neighbouring Lynnmour community.
It is all coming together very nicely and everyone is excited to see the wall complete in the next few weeks.

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall – 2021), will feature twenty naturalistic colours which represent a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and area. Merge stands at 4m tall and spans 356m along the newly reconfigured section of the Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) between Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing and Lynn Creek.

The acoustic dampening, sound wall sits between the highway and the residential neighbourhood along Keith Road and is clad in colourful powder-coated aluminum panels. The panels have been carefully configured to produce a giant, site-specific spectrum designed to be viewed by both passing traffic and residents in nearby communities.

@solidrockfencing

@KCIKraftConsultingInc

@NVanDistrict

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: Installation in Progress

9/9/2021

We are very pleased to let you know that the installation of MERGE has commenced and is anticipated to be completed by the end of September.

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall – 2021), will feature twenty naturalistic colours which represent a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and area. Merge stands at 4m tall and spans 356m along the newly reconfigured section of the Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) between Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing and Lynn Creek.

The acoustic dampening sound wall sits between the highway and the residential neighbourhood along Keith Road and is clad in colourful powder-coated aluminum panels. The panels have been carefully configured to produce a giant site-specific spectrum designed to be viewed by both passing traffic and residents in nearby communities.

Whereness turns 5!

5/19/2021

Spacemakeplace is celebrating five years since the installation of ‘Whereness’. Located near the Langara /49th Avenue Canada Line Station, ‘Whereness’ was commissioned by Mosaic Homes for the City of Vancouver Public Art Program in 2016.

‘Whereness’ provides a tactile link between the area’s geological past and its current condition. The bottom boulder of the sculpture is a granite glacial erratic, deposited at this address thousands of years ago as a huge ice sheet receded up the Fraser Valley. This very boulder was scanned and replicated six times, then stacked to form a visual puzzle.

The sculpture acknowledges the practice of piling rocks at certain points along pathways to guide travellers crossing the landscape. This simple custom is still common across cultures around the world.

Coming Together To Give Back To The Community

3/18/2021

On the anniversary of our COVID-19 life, we want to share some feel good news from 2020. With proceeds from the sale of “Come Together” (2020), we were able to donate back to the St. James Town Community Corner, near TTC Sherbourne subway station. “Come Together” is a bespoke, glazed ceramic tile mosaic (0.6m x 2.0m) commissioned by Louis Vuitton.

“Come Together” (2020) glazed ceramic tile mosaic (0.6m x 2.0m) Louis Vuitton. Yorkdale, Toronto.

The St. James Town Community Corner was one of the hosts to the original community pattern-making workshops that Spacemakeplace held in 2018 to gather pattern inspiration for the TTC mosaic. The donation from Spacemakeplace will be used in a program that offers employment to local refugee women to prepare meals for the elderly and vulnerable in the community over the COVID-19 crisis.

Store designers for Louis Vuitton contacted Rebecca last spring interested in acquiring a new work to be included in the Louis Vuitton international art collection. “Come Together” (2020) is displayed alongside new artworks by Toronto-based street artist BirdO, and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, at the new Louis Vuitton Canadian flagship store located in Yorkdale Mall, Toronto.

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: Waidhofen, Austria

3/11/2021

Thanks to FORSTER and Rainer Kraft from Kraft Consulting for their recent photos of the colourful acoustic panels that have now been fabricated at Forster’s factory in Waidhofen, Austria. Later this summer (2021) these panels will be installed along side 356m of Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) between Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing and Lynn Creek in the District of North Vancouver.

The public artwork, MERGE, will feature twenty naturalistic colours representing a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and area. The ~620 powder-coated aluminum panels have been carefully configured to produce a giant site-specific spectrum designed to be viewed by both passing traffic and residents in nearby communities.