Design competition open for LGBTQ2+ National Monument
The federal government has opened a competition for the design of the LGBTQ2+ National Monument.
The monument will commemorate the historic discrimination against LGBTQ2+ people in Canada—including those who suffered due to the LGBT Purge between the 1950s and the 1990s. It will be located in Ottawa at the northeast side of Wellington Street near the Portage Bridge—not far from the Supreme Court of Canada.
A request for proposal has been posted to buyandsell.gc.ca. Teams of professional artists, landscape architects, architects and other urban design professionals are invited to submit their credentials and examples of work for consideration. The submission deadline is January 5, 2021.
The project is being managed by the LGBT Purge Fund—a not-for-profit corporation established in 2018 to manage memorialization and reconciliation projects mandated by the settlement. The Purge Fund is providing $8 million for the project and is working with Canadian Heritage and the NCC to ensure the monument meets the objectives of the settlement agreement and embodies the vision developed with Purge survivors and Canada’s wider LGBTQ2+ community.
“I am confident Canada’s design community can create a fitting memorial telling the story of those who were persecuted, dismissed and marginalized,” said Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. “Thousands of lives were devastated during the Purge. Careers were ruined and families were torn apart. I thank the LGBT Purge Fund for its vision of a monument that will inspire us to strive for a future that is free of LGBTQ2+ discrimination.”
The LGBT Purge refers to the period when LGBT members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian federal public service faced systematic discrimination, harassment and often firings due to their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression as a matter of policy and sanctioned practice.
Over time, survivors and their allies worked hard to secure apologies, gain recognition, win compensation, and change Canadian law. Canada was the first country in the world to provide substantial compensation for the harm inflicted on its own people through decades of state-sponsored discrimination.
"The LGBTQ2+ National Monument will be an enduring and important marker to commemorate the deep, state-sanctioned discrimination experienced by LGBTQ2+ people in Canada for many decades,” said Michelle Douglas, executive director, LGBT Purge Fund. “The LGBT Purge Fund is proud to provide the funding for this project and to ensure that that the voices of the LGBTQ2+ community are extensively consulted on the vision for this project."
The design competition jury will include experts in the fields of visual arts, landscape architecture, architecture, urban design as well as LGBT Purge survivors, representatives from key stakeholder groups, and subject-matter specialists.
The monument is scheduled to be completed by 2025.