The Countdown Public Art Project is an Ontario-wide initiative that engages community to create monuments to honour those affected by gender-based violence and to imagine, or count down to, a world without violence. It has been put on by a team of artists and advocates for the last seven years in communities across the province.
LCIHCS has been fortunate to partner with the ReDefine Arts team for three pebble mosaics in Lanark County.
Carleton Place
The start of our journey with ReDefine Arts was in Carleton Place. People were intrigued by the project; so much so that the community builds saw great turn outs, from service providers, survivors of gender-based violence, and community members. The Public Education Coordinator remembers passersby on the street stopping and joining in on the builds purely out of curiosity.
A hugely important element of the project is its accessibility. Anyone can jump in and join in any point throughout the process and get something out of it. On the Carleton Place build, this was where great conversation began. People started sharing their stories, their thoughts on the project, and their hopes for a world without gender-based violence. We saw the true potential of the impact of the Countdown Project as the development went on. LCIHCS staff participated and were excited to have a place to honour and remember victims and survivors that they work with, as well as a place to get conversation flowing about a topic that is otherwise kept quiet; especially in small communities like ours.
We now use the Carleton Place mosaic as the starting point for our annual Take Back The Night march. Visit this mosaic in the park behind the Carleton Place Town Hall (Mill St.).
Almonte
The process of bringing the Countdown Project to Almonte looked a little different because of COVID realities. All design and planning workshops were held virtually and via take-home workbooks for participants. Each person completed writing and drawing exercises to help the lead artist, Anna Camilleri, create the final design. Through these exercises, participants talked about their thoughts about community, gender-based violence, and what the project meant to them. The mix of all of these thoughts and drawings came together as the beautiful and unique mosaic we see now.
The community build component was held in-person, outdoors and masked. We had a great turnout of local politicians, service providers, survivors of violence, and LCIHCS staff. As folks were already aware of the project and the impact it could have on the community, there was even more excitement with this build.The unveiling of the mosaic in Almonte was held on the National Day for Truth & Reconciliation. This was intentional and incredibly meaningful to all of us involved in the project, recognizing the opportunity we had to share space with our Indigenous community members. The mosaic is meant to be a gathering and honouring space for all victims of violence and resides on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe land.
Visit this mosaic in the park beside the Old Town Hall in Almonte (near the River Walk).
Smiths Falls
In the late fall of 2021, just after unveiling Almonte’s pebble mosaic, we set out once again with ReDefine Arts; this time, to create a mosaic in Smiths Falls. Shortly after beginning this journey, in December 2021 Smiths Falls faced a tragic act of gender-based violence, a femicide, in its own community.
In early Spring 2022, we searched for a site that would hold the project for a while before finding the most accessible spot for the community. Smiths Falls Town Square had been proposed by the town, a community space between the Town Hall and the Library, in the heart of Smiths Falls. We felt this would be the perfect spot for our mosaic – in a place glaringly visible to the community as a place to honour those taken too soon by violence.
We used a part-virtual and part-in-person approach for this mosaic, with people joining us for design sessions and community build days. The theme that kept coming up in those sessions was a hummingbird. Hummingbirds symbolize resilience and adaptability, strength, and healing; all of which speak to the feelings participants had towards survivors of violence when brainstorming design ideas.
Despite our hopes to unveil the mosaic in the Town Square in September of 2022, due to construction delays and weather realities, we had to postpone the ceremony to May of 2023.
For the preview video of the Smiths Falls mosaic, visit this site: https://redefinearts.ca/blog/countdown-smiths-falls-mosaic-unveiling-postponed
Visit the new Town Square to see it; in between the Library and the Town Hall in Smiths Falls (Beckwith St.).
For the Countdown Project Digital Story, an online archive and presentation of the stories, artworks, and relationships built since the project began in 2016, visit: https://www.countdownstory.com/
To learn more about ReDefine Arts, visit: http://redefinearts.ca/
