Every Child Matters: A TrafficPatterns Install in New Westminster
On September 22, 2023, in the lead-up to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we installed an Every Child Matters pavement application in New Westminster. The design came from Charliss Santos, the 2023 winner of the national Every Child Matters T-shirt design contest. The install was made possible through the Orange Shirt Society, the City of New Westminster, and the Spirit of Children Society.
I want to write about this one because the work was the kind that a pavement studio should be honoured to be asked to do.
The Design and the Designer
Charliss Santos's winning design was selected in 2023 from submissions across the country. The design carries the weight of a movement that began with Phyllis Webstad's story in 2013 and has become, every September 30, a nationally observed acknowledgement of the residential school system and the children who did not come home.
When a design like this is chosen for permanent pavement installation, the choice of product isn't a commercial decision. It's a question of whether the surface will carry the artwork forward faithfully — whether the edges will hold, whether the colours will stay true, whether the design will still read clearly in 2030 the way the artist intended it in 2023.
TrafficPatterns for a Ceremonial Install
We installed this piece in TrafficPatterns preformed thermoplastic. The reasoning is the same reasoning that applies to every civic installation of cultural weight: the material has to hold the design without compromise across its full service life, and it has to fuse to the substrate in a way that no coating-over-paint approach can match.
TrafficPatterns sheets are pre-cut from the artist's CAD artwork. The installation happens in a single heat cycle — the asphalt and the sheet are brought to bonding temperature simultaneously, and the two fuse as they cool. The finished surface is structurally part of the pavement. It does not peel. It does not lift. It does not fade unevenly at the edges.
Expected service life in the New Westminster climate for this colour spec is in the five-to-seven-year window at full saturation, with gradual softening after that. For an installation tied to a national day of observance, that service life means the community engages with the artwork, in its original colours, for the better part of a decade.
The Sponsors
The install was funded through a partnership between the Orange Shirt Society (the national organization founded on Phyllis Webstad's story), the City of New Westminster, and the Spirit of Children Society (a New Westminster non-profit supporting Indigenous and at-risk children in the community). The Orange Shirt Society provides the national design contest framework. The City commits the civic space. The Spirit of Children Society connects the work to the community it most directly serves.
That kind of layered sponsorship is how a ceremonial install of this scale comes together. No single actor carries it. The design, the funding, the civic space, and the install expertise each come from a different source, and they align because the shared purpose makes them align.
What the Surface Does on September 30
On the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, residents of New Westminster walk across the design on their way to events, to schools, to the ceremonies that happen across the community that week. The design is not a poster that gets taken down. It is not a video that stops playing. It is part of the city, underfoot, every day of the year — and on September 30, the design is the ground that the observance stands on.
That permanence is what separates a pavement install from other forms of public-facing design. The surface is always there. It acknowledges what it acknowledges, every day, and the community does not need to be reminded to remember because the ground itself is the reminder.
Our Role
Square One's role on a project like this is narrow and important. We do not design the artwork. We do not fund the work. We do not determine the civic meaning. What we do is translate the design into a surface that will carry that meaning forward faithfully across the service life the community paid for.
On the Charliss Santos design, the install was clean, the edges held, the colours read the way the artist specified them, and the surface is on track to serve the full expected service life.
If your municipality or cultural organization is planning an install tied to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, or to another ceremonial observance, get in touch. We take this category of work seriously, and we are honoured every time we are asked to do it.
