Have you recently walked through Sunset Beach Park and wondered what and where those giant engagement rings came from? Or have you gotten off at the King Edward Canada Line station and stared at the VW Beetle cars in plexiglass boxes and wondered what they meant? I sure have. And now I know!

The Vancouver Biennale is a bi-annual public art exhibition that brings international art works to public spaces in Greater Vancouver, thus turning the city into an open air museum! Each exhibition features world-class international sculptures, new media and performance art located in parks, beaches and urban plazas.  Today the Vancouver Biennale launched their NEW Learning Centre website, which features a game for kids (and adults!), self-guided tours, lesson plans for schools and artist statements on each piece.

I encourage you to check out as many of these installations as you can! It’s not often that international art is so readily available to view in all parts of the city. Go to the Learning Centre website at vblearn.ca and download a self-guided tour to help you navigate through Vancouver or Richmond, learn about all the installations you’ve seen and upload images of your learning experience to the community gallery.

The Vancouver Biennale also produces publications, curriculum, professional symposiums and public lecture series, which you can investigate via the Vancouver Biennale main website.

A bit about this year’s exhibit:

Pursuing the theme “in-TRANSIT-ion”, the 2009-2011 exhibition will expand and situate art along bike routes, at the Vancouver International Airport, at new Canada Line stations and wrapped on buses and

rapid transit trains. In doing so, the exhibition will emphasise the physical movement of people in our mobile society, as well as our changing attitudes and sensibilities towards public art.

Chinese artist Yue Minjun’s installation,  A-maze-ing Laughter, located at Morton Park (triangle) in Vancouver, B.C. Photograph by Dan Fairchild.