With Words as Their Actions
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In August 2015, PLANT was awarded the commission to design a permanent public artwork for Lyon station in the City of Ottawa’s new Confederation Line LRT. Located on the concourse level at Lyon Station, With Words as Their Actions | Par la Force des Mots celebrates women as keepers of history – and in particular, the 32 women who, in 1898, founded the Ottawa chapter of the Women’s Canadian Historical Society (now the Historical Society of Ottawa). In 1954, Anne Dewar, a member of the society, presented “The Last Days of Bytown”, a lively documentation of life in the community a century earlier, when it was on the verge of changing its name from Bytown to Ottawa and becoming Canada’s capital. With Words as Their Actions features Dewar’s 5,000-word text laser-cut into a 75′-long curving stainless steel curtain. Lines of text cut through on one side in English interweave with the French translation cut through on the other side, recalling the intricacy of hand embroidery and other fabric arts traditionally considered ‘women’s work’.
Instead of reading this lacy curtain of words all at once, transit riders can absorb a bit of it each time they pass through the station; the turned-out letters that add texture to the artwork also act as bookmarks, making it easy to ‘pick up where you left off’. Silhouettes representing the society’s founders gathered in conversation preside over the curtain, passing their knowledge from one another, and to the viewer.
With Words as Their Actions | Par la Force des Mots is part of the permanent collection of the City of Ottawa Art Collection. Two exhibitions also document the making of the artwork: ”Transformations” at Rideau Station and the City Hall Art Gallery/Karsh-Masson Gallery to the end of January 2020.










- A Conversation of Views
- Admiral Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Garden
- Airdrie Road Residence
- Albany Avenue Residence
- Alcina Garden
- Alexandra Park
- Alwington Landscape / Garden Pavilion
- Aporia Records
- Ardwick Townhouses
- Asphalt Poetry
- – Poem
- Baby Point Gardens
- Beach Garden
- Beach Village BIA Master Plan
- Beaty Residence
- Bennington Hts Garden
- Bennington Hts Ravine Garden 1
- Berkeley Street Residence
- Bin-Scarth Garden
- Blink and you miss it.
- – Poem
- Block 22 Landscape
- Bloor St. Apartment
- Blue Note
- Booth Avenue Residence
- Boustrophedon Garden
- Braemore Gardens Residence
- Brahms Townhouses
- Browning Avenue Residence
- Brunswick Avenue Residence
- Camp Arowhon Offices
- Canadian Firefighters Memorial
- Catch / Renew / Release
- Channelled Buried Moved Lost
- Chocolate Loft
- City Instrument
- Clarendon Garden
- Conversation Piece
- Cortleigh Boulevard Garden
- Creemore Farm
- Danforth Mosaic BIA Master Plan
- Danforth Parkettes
- Dickson Park Garden
- Dilworth Residence
- Don Landing Revitalization
- Dublin Grounds of Remembrance
- Duncanwoods Townhouses
- Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden
- Dupont-by-the-Castle BIA
- East Point Bird Sanctuary
- Eglinton Ave. Forecourt
- Eglinton Park Master Plan
- Elizabeth Fry Society
- Ellsworth Residence
- Face to Face | Tête à Tête
- First Avenue Garden
- First Avenue Residence
- Flyover Canada
- Foote’s Pond Wood
- Forest Hill Village Streetscape
- Gaze, Glimpse, Glance
- Global Affairs Monument
- Goldring Landscape, University of Toronto
- Gormley Garden
- Governor's Bridge Lookout
- Greener P
- Greer Road Garden
- Greer Road Residence
- Guelph Bridge
- Head in the Clouds
- Helena Ave Residence 4
- Jean Tweed Addition + Laneway House
- Junction Craft Brewery
- Kelpies Competition
- Kew Gardens Streetscape
- King's Landing Apartment
- Kipling & Islington Developments
- Lakeport Beach Neighbourhood
- Le jardin du repos
- Lenticular Curtain
- Leslie Slip Lookout Park
- Liberty Village Parkettes
- Liza’s Garden
- Lynwood Garden
- Macroscape
- Makwa Waakaa'igan
- Markham Garden One
- Markham Street Residence Two
- Massey College Landscape Restoration
- May Street Ravine
- Midtown Yonge Streetscape
- Montreal Holocaust Memorial Competition
- Mount Dennis Parkettes
- Mulock Park
- Nathan Phillips Square
- – Streetscape
- – Peace Garden
- – Podium Roof Garden
- Octane Medical Campus
- Orchard View Garden
- Osgoode Atkinson Green Competition
- Owl Cottage
- Paperstone Scissors
- Pendrith Residence
- Peripheral Sitings
- Pottery Road Crossing
- rare
- Ravine Forecourt
- Ribbon of the Lower Don
- Riverside BIA Master Plan
- Roxborough Garden One
- Roxborough Garden Two
- Schulich School of Business
- Sheridan College
- – Trafalgar Campus Master Plan
- Spadina Quay Wetland
- St. Anne's Road Garden
- St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts
- Stratford Market Square Competition
- Stratford Patterson Theatre Competition
- Superkids Dental
- Superlegible
- Sweet Farm
- Sweet Farm Pond House
- Swift Medical Offices
- The Meadows Reconsidered
- The Red Sash
- The Sara Jackman Playground
- Thick & Thin
- Thistletown II Townhouses
- Tipping Point
- TMU Centre for Urban Innovation
- TMU Science Building
- Tranby Garden
- Tree House Residence
- UBC Okanagan – The Commons
- UHN Tunnels
- University of Toronto Mississauga Welcome Centre
- UW Mathematics Landscape
- Venice Biennale 2012
- Vermont Square Park
- Vernon Avenue Garden
- Walker Townhouse Courtyard
- Walk the Walk
- Walmer Road Residence
- Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial
- Wellesley Cottages Garden
- Wells Street Residence
- Wendat Square
- Westminster Residence
- Weston Village BIA Masterplan
- With Words as Their Actions
- Woodlawn Avenue Residence
- Woven Stories
- Wynford Drive Residences
- York Park
- Yorkwoods Townhouses
- Young Centre for the Perfoming Arts