Every Child Matters, New Westminster

Every Child Matters pavement art for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the 2023 national design by Charliss Santos, installed in TrafficPatterns on September 22, 2023.

On September 22, 2023, in the lead-up to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Square One installed an Every Child Matters pavement piece in New Westminster. The design is Charliss Santos's, the 2023 winner of the national Every Child Matters T-shirt design contest, and the work was made possible through the Orange Shirt Society, the municipality and the Spirit of Children Society. It is not a poster that comes down; it is in the ground every day of the year.

The piece is TrafficPatterns preformed thermoplastic. The sheets were pre-cut from the artist's artwork and installed in a single heat cycle: the asphalt and the sheet are brought to bonding temperature together and fuse as they cool, so the finished surface is part of the pavement rather than a coating over it. The manufacturer publishes the sheet at 125 mil with anti-skid elements throughout. The choice here was about holding the edges and colours of a design that carries the weight this one does.

The photographs show an orange field set into the paving of a public square, with the design in black, two hands holding a circle and the words Every Child Matters, and a view from above with the bollards at the square's edge. Square One's role was narrow: not the design, not the funding, not the meaning, only the surface. A municipality or organization planning an observance piece should ask for cut thermoplastic sheets from the artist's file so the artwork is reproduced exactly.

Read the full story: Every Child Matters: a TrafficPatterns install in New Westminster