Vernon city council will not support controversial Behind the Mask project

Photo: Contributed

Controversial murals designed to showcase mental-health issues should be shown inside the Vernon Public Art Gallery only and not outside on public or private buildings, Vernon city council decided on Tuesday.

City councillors said they had never received so many letters and emails on an issue as they had on the Behind the Mask project.

“As soon as the murals were shown to the public, opposition developed immediately,” said Coun. Scott Anderson. “A petition against them sprang up and letters began to flood into council inboxes. I’ve never seen anything like that scale. The public does not want these murals.”

Behind the Mask is a project in which people with mental-health challenges express their emotions by creating and being photographed wearing masks. The final phase of the project was the creation of large murals on city and private properties, based on the photos.

Council was also asked to support the project with a $33,000 grant, which now won’t be paid out.

Coun. Kelly Fehr argued council had a mandate to support public art and had supported this project four times already.

“The public directed council in the previous referendum four years ago to make art a priority in this community,” he said. “After approving this project four times, for this council to pull its support for the project … goes against what the general public has directed us to do.”

But he could find no support at the council table for his position.

Coun. Kari Gares said she liked the project, but couldn’t ignore the public opposition.

“I see the merits of this … However, I am struggling with the fact the broader general public, they have not bought into that.”

Coun. Brian Quiring complained he’d been accused of not supporting mental-health initiatives.

“I’m being scrutinized about my opinion on mental health,” he said. “People will say that if you don’t approve the murals, you don’t care about mental health. That’s a bullying tactic.”

Mayor Victor Cumming said the murals are too big.

“I’m definitely not comfortable with the size. I’m definitely not happy with the number of them,” he said.

After initially planning to take no action on the project support request, council decided to make its answer a firm no. The art gallery can come back with another proposal, if it wishes, council was told.