by Adam Kambeitz

It is not only the architecture and the occasional star lighting up Vancouver at night, these days the city of Vancouver has transformed its landscape with a number of beautiful public works of art throughout the city. A few of those works, although visually stimulating and inspiring by day, take on whole new meaning when viewed at night.

One piece in particular stood out for me, the sculpture entitled “We”, created by internationally renowned artist and sculptor Jaume Plensa. It is located a few metres south of the intersection of Thurlow Street and Beach Avenue in English Bay, and was constructed as part of the Vancouver Biennale.

The Vancouver Biennale, which is a bi-annual event that celebrates art in public places, describes the sculpture as a celebration of “Vancouver’s linguistic and cultural diversity” which seemed quite fitting as Vancouver prepares to host the world later this week. The 16 feet tall aluminum piece combines a number of letters chosen from 8 different alphabets (Latin, Greek, Russian Cyrillic, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Arabic, Chinese) to create a shape resembling a man sitting on the ground with his knees tucked into his chest. Lights have been placed in the floor of the “womb” created by the structure and light upwards through the white lettering to create a beautiful glowing effect.

I had the pleasure is of being introduced to Miriam Blume this week, who is the Director of Communications for The Vancouver Biennale. She was kind enough to describe to me the main of objective of the project and mention a few tips to make the experience more enjoyable.

Our objective is to situate art where people live, work and play, creating cultural experiences for people as they move about their daily lives. Our open-air museum includes some of the most renown artists from around the world and some new rising super stars that can't be missed.

A downloadable map is available on our website, and we encourage people to hop on their bikes, or take the Canada Line or do a series of walks to see all of the sculptures during the exhibition.

During the Olympics, we invite the city to join us nightly at Sunset Beach Park to watch the Vectorial Elevation light show in and amongst some of the most spectacular Biennale sculptures. Completely free and family-friendly, it's an incredible way to spend an evening. Watch for the Biennale team in bright yellow jackets giving away collector pins and postcards.

To find out more about the other sculptures and the artist behind them check out the Vancouver Biennale website or follow them on any of their social profiles Facebook, Twitter or Flickr.

Adam Kambeitz is the owner of Nine Point Ten Marketing a social media based marketing company and is interested in all things Social Media.
Follow Adam on Twitter @adamkambeitz or @ninepointten