Billboards Reimagined
Two Winnipeg art projects use billboards to beautify the visual landscape and make important stories visible.
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The sound of drums filled the air as the Red Robe Women Drum Society Singers played for the Resilience art exhibition launch party at Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA) on Main Street. Over 175 people filled the small space in MAWA’s gallery on Friday, Jun. 1, 2018.
Then a bus delivered artists, art lovers, and out-of-towners to one of the billboards at the bottom of the Disraeli Freeway. When the overhead billboard switched screens to reveal Warrior Woman: Stop the Silence! by Mary Longman, everyone broke into applause.
“It was really exciting for people to see [the billboards] so big and looming over the Disraeli bridge,” says the Co-Executive Director of MAWA, Shawna Dempsey. MAWA is a small grassroots organization empowering women and gender minority people in visual arts.
Warrior Woman: Stop the Silence! is part of Resilience, a cross-country billboard and street-level art exhibit created by 50 Indigenous artists. Each artwork represents stories from Indigenous women artists focusing on resilience and strength in the face of racism and sexism. The project responds to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #79: integration of “Indigenous history, heritage values, and memory practices into Canada’s national heritage and history.” Using billboards to display the artworks, the exhibit created a massive physical presence across Canada that celebrated Indigenous artworks and incorporated them into Canada’s visual landscape.
“Here, [Indigenous men, women, and children’s] spirits are honoured and not forgotten, and their story is told and honoured,” writes Mary Longman in the text accompanying her piece online.
Longman’s piece started as a memorial to her late mother. But the piece changed and evolved into a memorial for Indigenous men, women and children who died during colonial land acquisition.
Billboards as Beauty
While the billboards that were part of MAWA’s Resilience project enhanced the landscape, many billboards and other out-of-home media don’t. Rather than seeing billboards as beautiful or thought-provoking, many people think of them as eyesores or even violations of the social contract.
Matt Cohen, creator of the Light Capsules project and historical advertising buff, explains that advertisements are generally associated with a benefit, but in an outdoor space, there’s usually no benefit to the viewer because they receive nothing in return. In other advertising settings, Cohen explains, the exchange is more obvious; for example, signing up for a social media platform is free, but the platform can harvest the user’s data. TV advertisements help pay for TV shows, and advertisements at movie theatres help to keep ticket costs down. But with outdoor advertising, viewers don’t get anything in return, so they are more likely to view outdoor advertising as violating the social contract and contributing to visual pollution. “[Outdoor advertising] breaks the social contract because I’m not getting anything out of it other than seeing an ad,” says Cohen.
São Paulo, a city in Brazil, passed the “Clean City Law” in 2006, and put it into effect the following year. The city removed over 15,000 billboards and other signs to combat “visual pollution.” A survey done a year after the ban showed 70 per cent of people in São Paulo agreed with the advertising ban. It also created a new identity for the city, one without signage everywhere. In 2012, they modified the law to allow the display of art pieces. Other places implemented similar billboard bans after São Paulo did, including Chennai, Paris, Grenoble, Hawaii, Maine, and Vermont. While many people don’t like out-of-home media because it’s big, aggressive, and hard to ignore, those are exactly those qualities that makes them a powerful way to communicate a message.
While billboards are typically thought of as a commercial medium, some innovative projects lean into art. Two Winnipeg-based projects, Resilience and Light Capsules, demonstrate how out-of-home media can be artworks that add beauty and visual interest to the landscape. These two projects uphold the social contract. They beautify the landscape and contribute to the richness and interest of public space rather than taking away from it.
Resilience
MAWA’s Resilience project used billboards as a vessel to showcase artwork and enhance Canada’s visual landscape from coast to coast.
“It was incredible,” says Dempsey.
This was a big undertaking for a small organization like MAWA. When the exhibit curator Lee-Anne Martin flew in to Winnipeg for launch day, the group met for dinner. Martin walked in with surprise and confusion when she saw only five people sitting at the table. It was MAWA’s whole team.
“[The billboards] are not about a single issue, so I think they’ve inspired a lot of discussion about different issues,” says Dempsey.
Dempsey acknowledges not all billboards are aesthetically pleasing, like a billboard placed at her cousin’s farm advertising for Sand Hills Casino. But the images used for Resilience are eye-catching and bold. By putting art on billboards in public space, Dempsey hopes the art did what it should do: inspire different ways of thinking.
The Resilience billboards had a significant physical presence, which compelled viewers to go to the location and see the images. Whether driving to work, walking around, or travelling, millions of Canadians encountered these billboards. MAWA’s final report shows the website received more than 38 thousand views, and PATTISON Outdoor Advertising reported the billboards had more than 23 million views. Resilience increased the visibility of MAWA and the visibility of female Indigenous artists. Some of the featured artists include KC Adams, Jaime Black, Annie Pootoogook, Mary Longman, and Christi Belcourt.
“We thought more people need to see these works than the people who come to MAWA,” says Dempsey.
Billboards are highly accessible and connect with audiences during their daily commute. They become a part of someone’s daily routine.
“It is very much kind of hitting them at the right time, but I think the importance of doing it on billboards was they were monumental in scale,” says Dempsey.
“I would walk to work, and I would be like, ‘What kind of a day am I gonna have? Oh, maybe I’ll have a Rosalie Favell kind of day,’” says Dempsey.
The billboards had the power to bring artwork into the spotlight where they couldn’t be ignored. “Not every piece of art resonates with every person, but there’s something cumulative about 50 of them,” says Dempsey.
Resilience displayed artworks reflecting the perspectives of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women artists along the highways and cities from Newfoundland to British Columbia.
“In the media, we hear a lot of our missing and murdered Indigenous women, and the places where Indigenous women disappear from are often inner cities or on highways,” says Dempsey.
“We tried to be sensitive to the needs of different communities,” says Dempsey. She explains how MAWA went the extra mile and made the Resilience images accessible by adapting them into different formats like big posters, small posters, and vertical images for bus shelters. They did this so it could reach remote areas, schools, and band offices.
However, there weren’t enough funds to place billboards in every community. Dempsey says the community of Flin Flon, MB was upset because they weren’t getting a Resilience billboard, so the community raised funds to get one. According to Flin Flon Online, the community received local funding from the Flin Flon Teachers Association and Rotary Club of Flin Flon. It not only changed the visual landscape, but it also embedded Indigenous history and culture into the environment.
After Resilience, other art organizations like Arbutus Greenway Billboards, Calgary Arts Development, Hamilton Artists Inc., AKA Artist-run, and PAVED Arts, created different art campaigns in cities like Calgary, Hamilton, and Saskatoon. They continue to take applications from local artists to put their artworks on billboards.
Resilience first used billboards to provoke meaningful conversations and they are continuing to do so through a Teaching Guide about the exhibit. It’s an educational project highlighting the 50 Resilience billboard images for classrooms. The guide has lots of information, ideas, and discussions, for kids in kindergarten to Grade 12. They sold 2,000 physical copies, and in 2023, they released a third edition with changes to terminology and an added section on cultural appropriation.
Light Capsules
While MAWA re-imagined what the future of billboards could be, ghost signs re-imagine painted signs from the past. Ghost signs were once simply advertisements, but now we see them as a type of art that beautifies the Exchange District and connects us with history. Ghost signs improve the visual landscape by adding beauty, uniqueness, and character.
Before billboards, painters hand-painted words or illustrations on the side of buildings, often about products or services, and as years passed the signs weathered and aged. They earn their name from being reminders of businesses that no longer exist.
The City of Winnipeg website states that during the 1880s to 1920s, Winnipeg was a major transportation hub which had train routes going from the West Coast to the East Coast. Eventually, the train lines expanded into the United States of America. These routes were run by the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern Railway. All trade goods in Canada were routed through Winnipeg, making it a transportation hub and causing rapid expansion. Winnipeg’s population tripled, making it the third largest city in Canada and earning it a new nickname: “Chicago of the North.”
The Exchange District National Historic Site of Canada Commemorative Integrity Statement says that in 1997, the Federal Minister of Canadian Heritage declared the Exchange District a National Historic Site of Canada because it was the centre for the grain trade, finance districts, manufacturing buildings, and warehouses. Even though the businesses are gone now, these buildings are historically protected, including the ghost signs. They cannot be altered or removed, which has maintained the quality and quantity of Winnipeg’s ghost sign collection.
Over the past ten years, Matt Cohen, a ghost sign enthusiast who runs a website (and walking tours) about Winnipeg’s ghost signs, has documented and transcribed the different ghost signs in Winnipeg. Cohen wanted to know more about ghost signs, but he couldn’t easily find information on them. So, he researched and catalogued them. As the ghost signs change and fade, future generations can look back at Cohen’s collection of online information and images.
Cohen explains how Winnipeg’s Exchange District has one of the largest collections of ghost signs in North America, with over 125 signs.
“They tell an interesting story of the businesses and brands that established the city like 150 years ago,” says Cohen.
In 2017, Cohen reached out to Craig Winslow, an Adobe Creative Resident from Portland, OR. Together, through an Adobe Creative Residency and some other funding sources, they created Light Capsules, a project that lights up ghost signs in Winnipeg’s Exchange District in an non-invasive way. As part of the project, some signs are lit up for a night and others over a span of ten years.
Cohen’s research includes looking up street names and events in old photos to see how the signs have changed over the years. The signs with multiple painted layers are good candidates for the Light Capsule project as the images cycle through the different layers of advertisements.
The project uses a gobo projector to rotate through a series of designs, showing the different layers of the ghost sign. Light Capsules brings the ghost signs back to life by shining light on the history of the ads.
In 2017, Cohen and Winslow designed and lit up five ghost signs in a one-night-only event called Painted in Light to showcase a few of Winnipeg’s ghost signs. Later, in 2022, Cohen and Winslow launched the first permanent Light Capsule in Canada on the corner of King and Bannatyne. The display, which could last up to 10 years, includes three painted ads for Stobart, Sons & Co., Christie Grant Company, and Barber-Ellis Envelope Manufacturers.
A year later, they launched another Light Capsule for Milady Chocolates and Porter & Co. This Light Capsule should last until 2030.
Ghost signs are historical examples of marketing in Winnipeg. The signs also contribute to Winnipeg’s visual landscape by adding vintage characteristics to the Exchange District and referencing Winnipeg’s past commercial centre.
The newest addition to the ghost sign collection is The Nutty Club, the iconic Winnipeg-based candy and nut manufacturing company built in 1906. People mainly notice the building from the fun-painted Nutty Club characters. This was an iconic local brand in Winnipeg, and in 2017, the Manitoba Historical Society recognized the building as a historical site.
Although the Nutty Club shut down at the end of January 2024, the signs will remain untouched because the building is a historical site. Ghost signs aren’t spooky. Instead, they offer a glimpse into Winnipeg’s past and the businesses that were once there.
Resilience and Light Capsules are examples of Winnipeg projects that beautify the visual environment. MAWA saw an increase in awareness for the organization, and the artists got their work in front of a new audience. Lighting up ghost signs adds visual interest at night and shines light on Winnipeg’s history as a commercial hub.
These creative ways of using out-of-home media show how creativity can help us re-imagine how to use billboards in ways that add to rather than detract from the landscape. Billboards can impact a viewer’s impression and can influence how people feel. Dempsey says she felt the Resilience campaign would not have the same impact coast-to-coast if it had been done on social media.
“People would look at it, but it wouldn’t have, I don’t know, kind of like the holy shit factor, like look at all the billboards we had up across the country, and we’re a big country,” says Dempsey.
There’s lots of visual clutter across the country, but MAWA displayed captivating imagery, enriching the landscape. “These are gorgeous, compelling, provocative, complex images,” says Dempsey. “I think they absolutely enhance the landscape.”
