Frozen River - Public Artwork

Public Art Budget: $266.5K
Commissioned by: Calgary Fire Department
Capital Project: Emergency Operations Centre
Project Completion: November 2014
Title of Artwork: Frozen River
Artist: Stephen Glassman
Site: Emergency Operations Centre (673 First St. N.E.)

The piece is a gesture to the native glacial and prairie landscape and its people. A rambling path of local stone and bent pipe loop-de-loops across the horizon, apparently in motion, defying gravity like a frozen river. The sculpture is a response to Calgary's inspiring elemental force and beauty – the rolling prairie, the metallic sky, the arctic air, the glacial river, and the emerging mountains.

With the creation of the Emergency Operations Centre, The City of Calgary now has a dedicated hub for municipal operations in the event of a major emergency. It will provide logistical support to the site of the emergency and will enable the flow of communications to the public.

This site has a history with the Fire Department since 1948 including the former EOC which has been on the Rotary Park site since the 1990's.

Stephen Glassman carries a portfolio representing nearly 30 years of substantial public and private artworks. His work is unique in its capacity to fuse emotive and sentient organic forms with the scale and processes of civic infrastructure, and in its ability to be simultaneously popular and poetic. Much of it is scaled for public venues that include parks, plazas, bridges and thoroughfares, and creates public spaces with a startling sense of life.

The artist was chosen through an open call process where all interested artists were invited to submit an application for the project.

The public art project was a collaborative initiative by the Public Art Program and City of Calgary Fire Department.