Calling all artists: Victoria on the hunt for new summer banner designs

Calling all artists of Greater Victoria!

The City of Victoria wants all artists and designers to submit their work and have their art seen all over the city.

Victoria changes the banners that decorate light standards throughout downtown and James Bay every season. Now that winter feels as if it’s halfway over, the City needs a new summer design.

The chosen winner will have their art displayed in up to 400 places throughout the city in an effort to beautify Victoria’s streetscape. The designs are selected every two years in a juried selection process through the City of Victoria’s Art in Public Places Program.

Artists from all over Greater Victoria, including the Southern Gulf Islands and First Nations may submit their designs. The winner of the selection process will have four designs implemented throughout the city until 2024.

The winner will also receive $2,000.

Here are the banners displayed through the spring/summer of 2021-22:

The previous winner of the summer banner competition was local Coast Salish artist Dylan Thomas in collaboration with Margaret August and lessLIE.

“Through this collaboration, I hope to extend my good fortune to two of my fellow Salish artists lessLIE (Cowichan Nation) and Margaret August (Shihshalh), while simultaneously honoring the student-teacher relationship that has helped sustain Salish art for thousands of years,” said Thomas. 

August was a student of Thomas’ and lessLIE was somewhat of a mentor figure for the artist.

“Through this banner project I chose to honour the lineage of contemporary Salish artist by working with lessLIE – an artist who deeply influenced my work and generously offered his help when my own practice was emerging; and Margaret Briere (August)–my first student who has been working with me over the past few years.”

The imagery in their designs was meant to reflect the collaboration’s relationships as well as heritage, according to Thomas.

“I created a central image (the Salish moon) and then shared this design with Margaret and lessLIE for each of them to expand and create their own designs.” 

“I chose to use lunar imagery because the moon represents a cycle in Salish iconography–and I wanted to allude to the teacher-student cycles that allowed the art form to thrive and evolve over vast time,” said Thomas.

Artists who wish to submit their designs can find the guidelines here. The deadline for submissions will be at 4 p.m. on January 26th. 

On Thursday, January 12th, at 5 p.m., an online event will be held to answer questions about the selection process.