Massive murals won't just brighten Winnipeg's Graham Avenue, they will make it safer

Winnipeg Free Press

27-06-2025

Murals, not buses, will soon running be up and down Graham Avenue.
Winnipeg is one of only 10 cities in North America — and just two in Canada, the other being Ottawa — selected for the US$100,000 Asphalt Art Initiative launched by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The project turns the formerly transit-heavy corridor into a whimsical urban canvas. Beginning Monday, local artists will cover the asphalt with large-scale, street-level murals.
Asphalt Art Initiative projects include Billings, Mont.
The public art initiative is part of the broader Reimagining Graham Avenue, which is seeing the four-block zone from Carlton to Garry Street transformed into a pedestrian-first corridor.
'It's not often where that scale of a (mural) project can happen this fast,' says project lead Stéphane Dorge, an organizer with CoolStreetsWPG, which specializes in transforming community spaces through art.
'This is kind of like an arts festival, where we're going to be up to 10 artists on site, plus helpers and volunteers bringing to life about 18,000 square feet of murals to animate the Graham Avenue space, so it's a bit overwhelming.'
Muralists include Marc Kuegle, Alex Plante, Kal Barteski, Kale Sheppard, Laura Lee Harasym, Mike Zastre, James Culleton, Architects at Play and lead artist Takashi Iwasaki.
Like a cinematically colour-graded street scene, the project will have a rich, overarching palette, but each of the artists was given near carte blanche to create, with an emphasis on play and interactivity.
Dorge describes Architects at Play's 13,000-square-foot piece as a 'playable mural where you can bring your own pocket dice or use a dice app on your phone to play.'
Varna, Bulgaria, was one of the cities that completed an Asphalt Art initiative in 2023
'I can't wait to unveil it.'
Reimagining Graham Avenue dovetails with the city's new spine-and-feeder transit model launching Sunday.
Known as Primary Transit Network (PTN), the new system is a historic transformation that will shift transit's focal points away from the downtown core towards other major corridors in the city, prioritizing bus frequency and greater neighbourhood-to-neighbourhood access across Winnipeg.
But rather than diminish downtown's place in the city's civic culture, projects such as the PTN and Reimagining Graham Avenue — which coincide with the intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street opening to pedestrian traffic — aim to transform the heart of the city into a more walkable social hub.
Look up from the asphalt tableaus, and rather than buses you'll soon see a public plaza, including street plants, picnic tables, furniture, benches, ping-pong tables and access ramps.
Car traffic will be allowed along other stretches of Graham, where protected bike lanes are also being added.
'When these changes are in place, Graham will be more colourful, more dynamic, more pedestrian-friendly. One more reason for people to visit, explore and enjoy our downtown,' said Mayor Scott Gillingham.
The application to Bloomberg Philanthropies, a charitable organization in New York, for the Asphalt Art Initiative was submitted by Public Works and the Planning, Property and Development departments at the City of Winnipeg.
'It was just a really well-thought-out, really inspired application,' says Nicholas Mosquera, one of the program leads at Bloomberg Philanthropies for the Asphalt Art Initiative.
'It reminded us a lot of work that we'd been doing (in New York City's Times Square). We saw a lot of similarities in the Winnipeg project, and we're happy to be a part of that effort.'
Studies consistently show that pedestrian-friendly design makes neighbourhoods feel more connected. For example, research from a University of British Columbia review found walkable neighbourhoods build civic trust and spark friendlier interactions, while a U.K. study showed that quieter, low-traffic streets made people more neighbourly and less lonely.
That same study also found that low-traffic, pedestrian-centric neighbourhoods can create public health gains up to 100 times greater than the costs of those plans.
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East Providence, Rhode Island Asphalt Art Initiative drone image.
And while public arts and beautification projects are sometimes criticized as a superficial fix to the social problems undergirding urban distress, a growing body of literature shows the social benefits run deeper than fleeting eye candy.
The Asphalt Art Safety Study, conducted by Sam Schwartz Consulting in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, analyzed 17 asphalt art sites across the United States.
Among the outcomes reassuring them of their good work, they found that crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists were halved, while crashes resulting in injuries decreased by 37 per cent, along with a 27 per cent increase in drivers yielding to pedestrians with the right-of-way.
'They're really striking results. We're really proud of that — (it's) some of the first research, certainly to our knowledge, to look at multiple arts-driven street-design projects,' says Mosquera.
A number of independent studies, mostly focusing on green projects, illuminate the effects of community beautification on improving mental health and community connectivity.
'It's incredible when we can see that the street is actually going to turn into a large piece of art,' said Kate Fenske, Downtown Winnipeg BIZ's chief executive officer, of Reimagining Graham Avenue.
Birmingham, Alabama Asphalt Art Initiative
'I hope this isn't the full catalyst, though,' says Dorge. 'We still need development of the surface lots and Graham. We need more housing downtown. But I hope this draws attention to that need and, hopefully, spurs prioritization from developers to focus on rebuilding that area and making it more vibrant.'
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From July 5 to Sept. 28, Graham Avenue will host four art installations by designers from New York, Halifax and Winnipeg — including a bike-powered giant fan and a coastal-themed landscape — along with projects by Art City (opens July 11) and the Manitoba Métis Federation.
This other wave of installations is part of Storefront Manitoba's Cool Gardens, a landscape art and design festival, now in its 10th edition, similar to the Warming Huts competition. (The event is not to be confused with CoolStreetsWpg, which leads the mural initiative on Graham; cool people abound in Winnipeg's public art field.)
This year, Cool Gardens also plans vibrant installations at Assiniboine Park, Osborne Village, St. Boniface and The Forks.
Conrad SweatmanReporter
Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad.
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