Seeking to enhance climate and culture with a new initiative, the Office of the Principal and Vice-Chancellor has partnered with the student-led Queen’s University Advocacy Coalition to commission a new piece of art.

The mural will be located on the south wall of the Queen’s Athletics and Recreation Centre, providing an opportunity to visibly illustrate the diversity of the Queen’s community and signal a future that is focused on celebration, healing, resilience, cultural diversity, and optimism.

“As we work toward our goal of advancing equity, diversity, inclusion, and Indigenization, it is imperative young people see themselves reflected at our university,” says Principal and Vice-Chancellor Patrick Deane. “We need to celebrate the diversity of our campus and art is a wonderful way to do this, visually representing our commitment to this goal.”

Three Canadian artists have been shortlisted for the project, which also is in partnership with STEPS Public Art. Queen’s will host a virtual open house on February 2 featuring presentations from artists Charmaine Lurch, Anna Jane McIntyre and Nuff. The open house will be held from 6 to 7 pm.

Following these initial presentations, everyone in the Queen's community will be invited to vote. The artists will then provide updated versions of their concepts which will be followed by another round of voting in early March to determine which design will become the mural, expected to measure approximately 23-meters x 8-meters (76-feet x 26 feet).

About the artists

• Charmaine Lurch is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work draws attention to human-environmental relationalities. Lurch’s paintings and sculptures are conversations on infrastructures and the spaces and places we inhabit.

• Anna Jane McIntyre is a visual artist based in Montreal with a playful practice that combines storytelling, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, performance, installation and microactivism. Her work investigates how people perceive, create and maintain their notions of self through behaviour and visual cues and is an ever-shifting visual mashup of British, Trinidadian and adopted Canadian cultural traditions.

• Nuff works across new media, street art and digital design. He is a founding member of mural collective MRLTM and new media collective Gathering.

For more information on the Advocacy Coalition Mural, please visit the Office of the Principal and Vice-Chancellor site. To register for the open house, please go to the Queen’s Eventbrite page.