Illustration of the north-facing windows of the Galt Museum & Archives show a transition from the old image to a proposed Community Mosaic (Dryden Roesch)

By Justin Goulet

LETHBRIDGE

Albertans invited to submit portraits for new Galt Museum mosaic

May 3, 2021 | 3:21 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The Galt Museum & Archives is getting a face-lift.

The Lethbridge museum has put out a call for submissions for a new ‘community mosaic’ at the entrance of the building.

It’s currently adorned with an image from 1957, showcasing a crowd of shoppers awaiting the opening of a new store. That image has been a part of the Galt’s aesthetic since 2011.

The museum is aiming to renew the space with a mosaic made up of hundreds of portraits of southern Albertans.

Anyone who “considers themselves a southern Albertan” can contribute.

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Graham Ruttan, the Galt’s Marketing and Communications Officer, told Lethbridge News Now that the goal is to get 400 to 500 portraits from members of the community.

Submissions can be made here and are being accepted between May 1 and May 31. Additionally, submitted portraits will be added to the archives to form part of the historical record of the region.

Ruttan said the existing mural had an expected lifespan that expired a few years ago, “so the quality of it was a little bit past due, so it was time to replace it so that we’d have something that was nice and fresh and was welcoming to all visitors coming into the building.”

The current image on the Galt Museum & Archives (Lethbridge News Now)

“What we really wanted to do was help people see themselves in the museum because we understand that it’s important as a regional museum that we represent who is in Lethbridge, and we felt that a photo from the 1950s, while it is nostalgic for a large part of the population who grew up here or who have strong ties going back to the 1950s-1960s in this area, there are lots of other people who have come here more recently for university or through immigration that aren’t represented in that photo as it currently is, so asking people to submit their photos is a way to be able to see better who lives in our community, who lives in our region and how has that perhaps changed since that photo in the 1950s has been up for so long.”

Ruttan said people can submit their portraits by any means, even by using their cell phone. The images will be about one foot by one foot.

He explained that, “once we get them in, we will go through and make sure that the photos that we select are able to be printed at the correct size.”

Once finished, the community mosaic will be installed on the north-facing windows near the museum’s main entrance, where the 1950s image is currently on display.

The new community mosaic will be unveiled in early July.