$800,000 downtown artwork goes dark

2025-01-21 13:48

$800,000 downtown artwork goes dark
Not a valid attachment ID.
A downtown art installation aims to highlight Calgary's history, but the Calgary Scroll remains in the dark. Why is this happening and what do Calgarians think? Kenna Saeed reveals.
A downtown art installation that was meant to highlight Calgary's history has been darkened.
Installed on a budget of $800,000 in 2017, the Calgary Scroll was a key part of the city's 8th Street SW pedestrian walkway revitalization project. The public artwork is meant to liven up an urban walkway and is typically illuminated by LED lighting, displaying moving messages that are snippets of text from Calgary's history over the past 100 years.
As of Monday, the artwork had been out of service, and several residents told CityNews that it had not been operating normally for several weeks. One Calgarian said he saw signs of trouble even before the moving screen faded, saying he had walked past it several times and seen "the Windows panel light up with the mouse cursor."
The city says a software glitch was first identified in early January.
Julie Yepishina-Geller is the city's public art manager and says the Calgary Scroll outage was the result of equipment malfunction and vandalism in the area.
She says that while they are trying to replace the faulty hardware to revive the roller coaster, the city's mobility team is also replacing the vandalized glass panels of the 8th Street underpass later this week. The city says this isn't the first time the Calgary Scroll has gone dark.
Advertisement
"This is an integral part of infrastructure management," Yepishina-Geller said in a statement. "If a piece of artwork or infrastructure is out of service for an extended period of time, it's usually because it requires a more in-depth repair, such as a specialized part or service."
The city expects the artwork to be back in service soon, but did not give a specific timeline.

[attachment deleted by admin]