An aerial view of Calgary’s Dale Hodges Park in 2018. (photo courtesy of Wilco Contractors Southwest)
From the hill above, the new Dale Hodges Park is impressive in scope. The park, on the north bank of the Bow River in Calgary, offers a visual narrative that follows the journey of storm water from nearby communities via a treatment trail that winds through engineered ponds, streams, marshes and wet meadows.
The park respects the site’s history as a former gravel pit, and the design acknowledges it is a constructed landscape. People who wind their way through the 100-acre landscape experience the park as a cohesive whole that emanates a sublime beauty.
The park is the result of a long and complex collaborative process to balance the priorities of three city departments – parks, water and public art – as well as consultants and community members. The design considered the site’s functional needs and broader environmental implications.
Aerial view of Calgary’s Dale Hodges Park in 2018. (photo courtesy of Wilco Contractors Southwest)
The park, named for a long-time alderman, began with Watershed+, a City of Calgary public art project that embeds artistic practice within the utilities and environmental protection department. It is a way of working, a philosophy. Unlike the typical approach to public art, the Watershed+ model is about taking time, working responsively and recognizing the value of sharing knowledge, expertise and space with other disciplines.
The park’s conceptual design process was driven by Watershed+’s statement of beliefs. The statement's principles underlie work by lead artists Tristan Surtees and Charles Blanc, collectively Sans façon, an international art practice that responds to relationships between people and place.
A pond in Calgary’s Dale Hodges Park in 2018. (photo courtesy Sans façon)
Within this model, there is no particular place to identify the public art nor any singular work by Sans façon. While the way the park came about seems intangible, it follows a vein of process, research-based artistic practices and institutional critique that informs the legacy of Watershed+. Sans façon invisibly repositioned the role of the artist in public art by making visible change from within.
This approach defies expectations and redefines what public art can be. It shows that artists, when given time and space at the table, can help transform the urban landscape with their questions and provocations, as well as mediate design and functional needs.
It has led to a public space that is emotional, immersive and intelligent, while demonstrating new possibilities for collaborations between artists and local governments. It’s a transformative model that shows how we can expand our ideas about complex urban systems and connect with place. ■
Dale Hodges Park, an extension of Bowmont Park, opened to the public on June 26, 2019.
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