Calgary removing public artwork after British comedians spot their images

CTVNews.ca Staff</span>
Published Tuesday, November 28, 2017 10:00PM EST
Last Updated Tuesday, November 28, 2017 11:26PM EST

Calgary is planning to take down a public art installation after British comedians noticed it used their images.

British comedian Bisha Ali says that an old friend whom she hadn’t spoken to in years contacted her and said her image was pasted on an underpass in Calgary, a city she had never visited.

Ali says she took a look and realized the artwork used the same photo she used to promote her show.

The $20,000 artwork from Derek Besant was supposed to show a “cross-section of the mix of people who depend, one way or another, on this route into and out of the downtown sector.”

"I see the 4th Street Underpass site as a cinematic moment, where the abutments serve as screens for pedestrian traffic to have a sequence of brief visual encounters that animate the action of moving through those spaces,” Besant says about the artwork in a statement on the City of Calgary website. “The portraits represent a cross-section of what any downtown core of a big city reveals and conceals as the flow of occupants. The reference to Polaroid SNAPSHOTS invites an immediacy... an intimacy, to what is a high traffic public art context. And between the hundred steps it takes to traverse this corridor, we might just come face-to-face with ourselves…"

It appears that it was Ali who saw herself, from all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Besant did not offer an explanation to CTV News about why the artwork apparenlty used Ali's promotional image.

Ali called the use of her image “a slap in the face.”

“No one ever asked me if they could use my giant face so it was kind of a surprise to me and certainly the photographer who took the photo,” she added.

After Ali used Twitter to confront Besant, other Brits came forward, including Sofie Hagan.

“It's just a weird experience but it's morally very wrong,” Hagan said. “It feels very wrong.”

Photographer Karla Gowlett said she was shocked that one of her photos ended up in the artwork, calling it “incredibly lazy.”

“He could have just done it in an afternoon with the people of Calgary,” Gowlett said. “It’s just disrespectful.”

My old friend who I met at Space Camp in Vancouver in 2006 just messaged me out of the blue:
— Bisha K Ali (@bishakali) November 27, 2017

"Hey Bisha! I know this is probably supremely weird but I think I saw a photo of you being used in a public art installation in Calgary..."
— Bisha K Ali (@bishakali) November 27, 2017

That's weird! Pics or it didn't happen, I say. So he sends me this: http://pic.twitter.com/QSX3tbx2dr
— Bisha K Ali (@bishakali) November 27, 2017

That's me. Original photo was taken in 2012/13 by the brilliant .@JaydeAdams .. here's the original photo:https://t.co/TTDh0cFzOL
— Bisha K Ali (@bishakali) November 27, 2017

This is a pic of the rest of the installation. I CAN NAME SOME OF THE COMEDIANS FEATURED: http://pic.twitter.com/4DEaWM5xXC
— Bisha K Ali (@bishakali) November 27, 2017

With a report from CTV Alberta Bureau Chief Janet Dirks

Let's block ads! (Why?)