Hello Neighbours
We are Caitlind Brown & Monica Ila, and we’re Ramsay-based artists. We have been secretly developing a new temporary mural for the dark and dingy underpass connecting Ramsay and Inglewood. For the past year and a half, we’ve been working with RCA President, Kolja Vainstein, on a proposal for artwork for the underpass on 11-12th Street SE. We’ve officially received permission from the City of Calgary and CKPC (formerly Canadian Pacific Railway) to go forward with our project. Our temporary mural will be designed with influence from hyper-local histories, stories, and myths, gathered through the neighbourhood as part of our community engagement phase – coming in Winter 2024.
The underpass between Ramsay and Inglewood is an important pedestrian corridor and the primary connector between Ramsay, our neighbours in Inglewood, and the Bow River. This underpass is part of the Green Line redevelopment area, however, this space isn’t scheduled for major improvements until at least 2027. We’re looking to make the space more welcoming to the neighbourhood as soon as possible. We will be funding the mural project through grants and fundraising and plan to paint in Fall 2024.
It's still early days, but you can connect with us through the Ramsay Community Association website and sign up to hear about further developments of the mural project. Are you a business interested in sponsoring our project? Do you want to participate in our upcoming community engagement? Do you want to volunteer? Get in touch! We need you.
About the artists
Caitlind r.c. Brown
Co-Lead Artist | www.incandescentcloud.com
Caitlind r.c. Brown is an artist, collaborator, and cultural organizer. Her work is centered in non-traditional art spaces, drawing from DIY practices, institutional critique, relational aesthetics, psychogeography, and the subversive power of novelty. Caitlind graduated from Alberta University of the Arts in 2010, earning an Alumni of Merit Career Award in 2019. Caitlind shares an award-winning sculptural practice with Wayne Garrett, exhibiting artworks across Europe, Asia, North America, Australia, and the Middle East. They currently have permanent public artworks in Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto, winning Mayor’s Art Awards in Calgary and Edmonton in 2019. Parallel to the process of civic art-making, Caitlind is a co-founder and curator of WRECK CITY, a curatorial collective that organizes experimental art exhibitions in alternative spaces. She maintains an annual art series called The Hibernation Project in her home community of Ramsay in Calgary/Mohkinstsis. Caitlind is a firm believer in art’s potential to permeate the everyday, building our human capacity for self-criticality and a clearer vision of the complex, superimposed world(s) that engulf us always.
Monica Ila
Co-Lead Artist | www.monicaila.com
Monica Ila is a multidisciplinary artist from Calgary, AB, who has a strong desire to improve the visual landscape of her hometown. Her work includes murals, sculpture, painting and puppetry. Playfulness is at the heart of everything she makes. Monica has experience creating public work in a variety of mediums and budget scales. She has a keen interest in creating art in communities and in under-utilized spaces. She is currently pursuing a BFA in Sculpture at the Alberta University of the Arts and is a long-standing Board Member of the Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry. Monica has been on the City of Calgary Artist Roster since 2018 and has experience working with large organizations such as schools within the Calgary Board of Education. Her artwork has been sold internationally and exhibited in solo shows within galleries across Canada and public institutions over the last decade. Monica believes that art is instrumental in bringing communities closer together and rediscovering the whimsy within our daily lives.