[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Jane's Walk 2009 in the Byward Market"][/caption] With 35 captivating neighbourhood-based walks on the program, this year's edition of Jane's Walk promises to be the most deliciously diverse version of the festival yet. We don't have the space to preview all of the tours on offer this weekend, but we do want to draw our readers' attention to several of the walks with a strong Spacing connection. From the outset of this blog, the people behind Apartment 613 have been huge supporters of Spacing Ottawa and it is no surprise ...

In the dense forest of corporate buildings in downtown Ottawa, wouldn’t it be nice to distinguish one corner from another? Too many offer only the pre-requisite coffee shop or dry cleaner tucked inside a big glass wall. One solution that enlivens urban centres is investment in corporate sculpture. When I was young, I had the chance to go to Chicago on a school field trip. To an art student, downtown Chicago is the epitome of cool. It’s a city that appreciates art and urbanism. We took architecture walks down streets lined with architecture by the likes of Louis Sullivan and Mies van der Rohe and you couldn’t help but notice the large commissioned sculptures that proudly sit in front of many of the city’s big buildings. It’s commonplace to give directions by saying: “Turn left at the big bat.” The “bat” being Batcolumn, a monumental grey skeleton of a baseball bat by pop artist Claes Oldenburg. Not only that, but people love the bat, gather and eat lunch in its shadow.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption=" Laneway art installation in Melbourne, Australia"][/caption] This week the Citizen's David Reevely ran an excellent post on Ottawa's  neglected laneway system, which has largely been allowed to disappear via generations of encroachments, though it is still visible as a series of thin lines on certain old maps of the city. Reevely identified the West Wellington area as the "big kahuna" of the old back alley network, and I was reminded of a piece I wrote for a print publication several years ago about the West Wellington laneways. The following is that article, slightly edited. - Evan Thornton It was a green dumpster plopped down in a patch of weeds; but something near to it had my friend acting weird. He was around the back, muttering; I heard phrases like “right through here” and “just where the map said it was”. Now he had me curious, and I tip-toed through the muck to join him. In front of us was a bizarre little structure sticking out of the back wall of the bowling alley like a carbuncle; imagine a plank-sided out-house grafted onto a cinderblock wall. A rich growth of weeds below almost convinced us it was an old privie; boarded-up, but still doing its bit to fertilize the soil below the cracked asphalt of this miniature urban wasteland.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Can "one percent" bring art to streets beyond the national gallery? "][/caption] When you see public art projects on Ottawa streets, do you wonder how they get there? Who pays for it? Many Ottawans don’t realize that every new Ottawa street re-vitalization project is subject to the City’s “1% for public art” policy. The idea of “percent-for-art” programs has been around for a while and is contingent on a mandated allocation from government (or corporate) initiatives. As it says on the City of Ottawa’s website: “One percent of funds for new municipal spaces is put aside for public art in order to beautify the space and make art accessible to everyone.” For example, the Community Design Plan for the Wellington West road reconstruction has a $25+ million price tag for capital improvement. 1% of that budget, approx. $250,000, is intended for commissioned public art. Other such projects include Bank Street, Preston Street and in the future, streets like Sussex Drive. Does the 1% always get directed to public art? No, but 1% initiatives are becoming more visible due to the strength and persistence of Ottawa’s vocal community groups who are starting to hold the City to its funding policy.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Did Montréal get the best Centennial legacy of them all?"][/caption] 1967 was a good year— the “last good year” according to Pierre Berton. Canada’s centennial sparked centennial-project craze across the country. I first started to think about the lingering legacies of Centennial celebrations on a visit to St. Paul, Alberta. I was on a little road trip checking out ‘big things on the side of the road’ and stopped in St. Paul to visit the town’s UFO landing pad. Reading the accompanying plaque I discovered that the UFO landing pad was a centennial project. For the citizens of this Albertan town, welcoming out-of-planet visitors was the perfect way to celebrate Canada’s birthday and Canadian hospitality. While countless arenas, community centers and parks were built in honour of the Centennial, Berton outlines other more extraordinary celebratory acts. Men grew ‘centennial beards,’ one man attempted (unsuccessfully) to lead a dog team from Tuktoyaktuk to Edmonton, and a team of paddlers embarked on a canoe trip/ race following the historic route of the Voyageurs from the North Saskatchewan River to Montreal, all in celebration of the nation’s birthday. Berton also noted this more anarchist style ‘centennial project’: “It almost seemed that every man and woman in the country was determined to mark the anniversary with a personal effort, even if to somebody it meant throwing a hammer through the window of the U.S. Consulate in Toronto. A note from the anonymous vandal attached to the hammer announced that this was his centennial project” (39).

[caption id="attachment_1694" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Courtesy of meaghan.walton"][/caption] As the national capital, Ottawa is in the somewhat unique position of housing many of the country's significant and historical monuments. For the folks who live here it means that often our daily commutes or routines can end up including references to the country's history, falters, apologies and successes. In many ways we Ottawans are responsible for the nation's collective memory. Today apartment613 is lucky to have a collection of photos from Meaghan Walton-Perreault exploring this theme. Take a look and let ...

I stood near the corner of Bank and Somerset one day, puzzled, as I watched a woman struggle to lock her bike to a fence that protected one of the newly planted ash trees, while a brand new bike rack stood vacant, less than 4 feet away, with no bike to call it’s own. This year I have watched with interest at the discovery and use of the new Bank Street bike racks and wondered how long it will take to for people to really make the connection. Public engagement with new community art is always a slow process. Last year the City of Ottawa put out a call to local artists to submit graphic drawings that would be used as templates for steel bicycle racks. This was part of the long overdue Bank Street North rehabilitation project between Laurier Avenue and the Queensway. It is one of many public art commissions the City currently has underway along central neighbourhood streets, such as Preston and Wellington.