The City of Saskatoon has spent nearly $300,000 on plastic-made rock sculptures as part of a longtime public art program, a purchase that has been criticized by some residents and a citizen advocacy group.
The city spent $297,490 on three plastic rocks installed at the Forestry Farm, Diefenbaker Park and the landfill. Canadian Taxpayers Federation prairie director Gage Haubrich has criticized the purchase, calling it a “waste of money.”
“It should be obvious, but taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for large plastic rocks,” Haubrich told The Epoch Times. “It’s ridiculous that anyone at city hall thought this was a good idea.”
A CTF press release noted the City of Saskatoon increased property taxes by 6.7 percent this year, and said the money spent on the rock sculptures is equivalent to the annual property tax bills of about 118 average households.
“If the city wanted to decorate some parks with rocks, they could have got real boulders for half the price, or a Saskatchewan farmer would likely have been happy to give them one for free,” Haubrich added.
Saskatoon Mayor Cynthia Block said the rock sculptures were purchased through the decades-old Percent for Art Program that allocates approximately 1 percent of the budget for city projects to public art.
“I would think the residents and visitors to our city have noticed that those investments have actually been really appreciated by many people over the years,” she said during her monthly mayoral check-in on “The big city” podcast with Evan Bray.
Haubrich argued the art program “should be scrapped” and the savings be put towards “tax relief or investment into actual city services.”
The sculptures, known collectively as Modern Erratics, were produced by the Calgary-based artist duo Sans façon and were chosen through a competitive, juried selection process by the City’s Public Art Advisory Committee, Block said, adding that the money to pay for them did not come through property taxes.
Block was questioned by podcast host Evan Bray on why the city didn’t purchase real boulders for a “fraction of the cost.” In her response, Block said art is subjective.
“For many of us that don’t live in the art world, art is, I guess, in the eye of the beholder,” she said, noting her own lack of knowledge on the subject. “Sometimes art pieces are chosen and they inspire, and other times they inspire controversy.”
City director of planning and development Lesley Anderson said the sculptures are meant to get viewers thinking about “sustainability.”
“Public art helps shape how people experience and connect with our shared spaces,” Anderson said in a city press release. “By transforming plastic waste into large-scale sculptures, these installations invite people to think differently about materials, sustainability and our relationship with the land.”
More than 10,000 pounds of plastic was processed to create the artwork and each sculpture incorporates materials connected to its location, according to the press release.
The sculpture at Forestry Farm Park is made of recycled black and white plastic grain bags commonly used on prairie farms, while the rock at Diefenbaker Park is composed of vibrant recycled bottle caps supplied by SARCAN, showcasing materials that are often thrown away in parks.
The largest of the sculptures, located at the landfill, is constructed from shredded black garbage bins, blue recycling bins, and green composting carts formerly used by households across the city.
The Epoch Times contacted city officials for comment on citizens’ feedback about the sculptures but did not hear back before publication time.
