Hours before the ribbon-cutting for the new Rogers Place, officials lifted the veil on a massive piece of art in the new arena.

Late Thursday morning, a massive tiled mosaic on the floor of Ford Hall (a feature of the arena formerly known as the Winter Garden) by Canadian artist Alex Janvier was revealed.

The piece, called Tsa Tsa Ke K’e (Iron Foot Place) is 14 metres in diameter, and is meant to represent the natural beauty of the Edmonton area.

 

 

The City said Janvier used nearly six million byzantine glass smalti tiles, weighing more than 3,500 pounds, in the piece – it took 20 staff members at Mosaika six months to put the piece together at their art mosaic fabrication studio in Montreal.

“Rogers Place will be an iconic landmark and gathering place for millions of citizens and visitors,” Mayor Don Iveson said in a statement. “It’s fitting this artwork by Alex Janvier was chosen for the heart of this space. Not only does it celebrate our shared history, it also represents the natural beauty and tranquility of our landscape.”

The mosaic is one of a number of public art pieces created for Rogers Place. The other pieces are called: Essential Tree by realities:united out of Berlin, Skater’s Arch by Saskatoon artist Douglas Bentham, and 9 Figures in Motion with a Puck by Edmonton artist Al Henderson.

The art pieces were commissioned under the City’s Percent for Art program, where one percent of construction costs of any new development go to public art.