Discovering public art by chance

Opinion

A few weeks ago, on a bike ride through St. Boniface with my wife, we veered off the familiar path and stumbled upon something unexpected.

In the middle of Whittier Park, nestled inside a circle of shrubs, stood a simple wood sculpture flanked by two benches. No plaque, no sign, no explanation — just a quiet presence in an open field. It felt like we had uncovered a secret.

As a curator and art historian, I am usually the one asking questions: Who made this? Why is it here? What does it mean? But in that moment, none of that mattered. The joy of discovery was enough. Sitting together on the bench, listening to the wind in the trees, the work felt like a gift — an invitation to pause and notice.

Curiosity, of course, eventually won out. I learned the piece was created by Winnipeg artist Shaylyn Plett, a designer and woodworker based in North Point Douglas. What looked like a sudden arrival was, in truth, years in the making.

Plett planted a ring of cotoneaster shrubs in 2018 and faithfully tended them — hauling water jugs across the park in the summer heat, trimming and shaping as they grew. Only when the shrubs had matured did she design and install the cedar sculpture and benches in 2022. Supported by the Winnipeg Arts Council, but also by neighbours and friends, the sculpture garden is less a static object than a living, evolving work. (More information about the work: www.shaylynplett.com/sculpture-garden)

That is part of what makes the project remarkable. Public art is often framed as a finished product — a monument unveiled, a mural completed, ribbon cut, competition won. Here, it is something slower, rooted in care and patience, shaped as much by the seasons as by the artist’s hand.

But what do we mean by public art? The term itself is slippery. Is it the bronze statue in the city square, the mural on the side of a warehouse, or a contemporary sculpture in a park? Or can it be something subtler — a space that transforms a patch of grass into a place to linger, reflect or even smile?

Unlike monuments or memorials, which usually speak in a single, official voice, public art can be more open-ended. It doesn’t always tell us what to think or how to respond. Sometimes it simply waits to be found.

That afternoon in Whittier Park, no explanation was given, no narrative prescribed. The meaning arose in the encounter itself.

Of course, public art doesn’t appear by magic. In Winnipeg, works might be commissioned through the Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, or through a foundation, developer, gallery or private donor. Each route involves its own priorities and politics. Deciding what gets made, and where it belongs, is never neutral — it shapes how we move through and understand our city.

Whittier Park carries its own layers of history. Once the site of a bustling racetrack in the 1920s, it was named for American poet John Greenleaf Whittier, whose 1859 poem The Red River Voyageur evoked the bells of St. Boniface ringing across the prairie.

Today the park is best known for the reconstructed Fort Gibraltar and as the home of Festival du Voyageur, where francophone and Métis culture is celebrated every February.

Into this landscape of memory, Plett’s sculpture garden has quietly taken root. It doesn’t compete with the fort or the festival. Instead, it adds another voice, another story woven into the fabric of the park.

What struck me most that day was how art revealed itself not through explanation but through experience. Marshall McLuhan once described art as “a distant early warning system” — a way of sensing what is happening in culture before we can put it into words. In Whittier Park, art wasn’t a label or a text panel. It was an environment — shrubs, carved cedar, sunlight, the river — that shaped how we felt, what we noticed and how we remembered the day.

In the museum, context is often provided through didactics, catalogues and tours, which can end up controlling the narrative. Out here, the context is the city itself. A passerby without any knowledge of art history, the politics of commissioned art or the piece itself can be moved by a sculpture glimpsed from a bike path. Sometimes the absence of information opens the door to a fuller experience.

Perhaps we need to broaden how we think about public art. It’s not always about permanence, grandeur or a prominent site. It can be small, subtle, even hidden. Its value may lie less in how many people know about it and more in how deeply it touches those who chance upon it.

In the public realm, Shaylynn Plett’s sculpture becomes more than the wood and steel. The artwork embraces the hedge, the park and the changing vistas beyond. For me, its discovery was on par with encountering any great monument for the first time. That afternoon in Whittier Park reminded me that art doesn’t always need to be explained, defended or even understood. Sometimes it just needs to be there — waiting for us to find it.

And sometimes that may be the best kind of public art: the piece that meets us where we are, when we least expect it, and leaves us changed, even if only for a moment. Hop on your bike, jog or walk over to Whittier Park — you just might be moved.

Stephen Borys is president and CEO of Civic Muse, and a former director and CEO of the Winnipeg Art Gallery.