Team Mills

Team members

Karen Mills, Art Direction, Public Art Management
Ben Mills, Art Direction, Public Art Management
Silvano Tardella, Landscape Architect, NAK Design Strategies
Robert M. S. Ng, Landscape Architect, NAK Design Strategies
Vong Phaophanit, Artist, Vong Phaophanit + Claire Oboussier Studio
Claire Oboussier, Artist, Vong Phaophanit + Claire Oboussier Studio

Design intent

Bronze stelae in the form of a gently undulating, permeable curtain, suggesting solemn movement across the landscape forms the central image of our proposal. From a distance the triangulated monoliths form a collective identity however up close they reveal individually finished surfaces echoing the distinct stories and experiences of different groups of refugees. Their trilateral shape is suggestive of movement forward from multiple provenances and towards multiple destinations.

The work introduces a play of levels, vistas as well as the experience of a journey; the linearity of its form is tempered by two landscaped “harbours” on either side. These spaces evoke a sense of arrival as well as one of refuge – held within their shelter the viewer may feel a sense of protection or belonging. This configuration allows the viewer to engage with both a sense of lost-ness and of belonging, of journey and of arrival, which perhaps characterizes the identity and the inner landscape of the refugee arriving in Canada.