In 2016, the Countdown Public Art Project began with an invitation to create a public artwork honouring those affected by gender-based violence and to build spaces where difficult lived experiences could be acknowledged publicly and collectively.
At the time, none of us could have fully imagined what that invitation would become.
What began as a single project in the Ottawa Valley grew into a decade-long, Ontario-wide public art initiative involving thousands of people, hundreds of workshops and events, and thirteen pebble mosaic monuments created with communities including Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn, Pembroke, Eganville, Killaloe, Peterborough-Nogojiwanong, North Bay, Brantford, Bancroft, Almonte, Smiths Falls, Combermere, and beyond.
But when I think about Countdown now, ten years later, I don’t first think about numbers, timelines, or even monuments. I think about people coming together.
I think about hands sorting stones. Someone quietly listening before deciding to lean in. Someone saying they are “not artistic” and then spending three hours completely absorbed in making. I think about shared food, folding chairs, ribbons moving in the wind, circles of conversation, and moments of hesitation giving way to laughter. I think about huddling around tables, placing stones while rain poured down around us, and the feeling that something important was happening that exceeded the artwork itself.
The monuments matter deeply. But the process — the gathering itself — has always felt like the true artwork.
From the beginning, Countdown was never only about creating pebble mosaics. It was about creating spaces where people could enter as they are: uncertain, grieving, hopeful, tired, curious, creative, cautious, or simply looking for connection.
I sometimes describe community arts practice as an improvised orchestration built on careful preparation.
That contradiction sits at the centre of Countdown.
So much preparation goes into the work: partnerships, outreach, accessibility planning, gathering materials, preparing spaces, coordinating artists and community partners. But once people arrive, the project becomes something living and unpredictable. The community reshapes it. The room changes. Relationships begin to form and deepen. Unexpected conversations emerge. The work itself shifts in response to who is present.
Again and again over the years, I have watched strangers become collaborators. I have watched people stay long after workshops officially ended because nobody wanted to leave too quickly. In a culture shaped by urgency, distraction, anxiety, and exhaustion, lingering together with shared purpose can feel quietly radical.
One memory I return to often is from a Countdown workshop in Carleton Place. We transformed a fluorescent hall into a welcoming art-making space. Tables were rearranged and covered with cloth. Stones were carried in by the hundreds. Food was set out. Art supplies covered nearly every surface.
It felt less like organizing an event and more like raising a temporary shelter together.
Over several days, the room filled with movement, concentration, conversation, and shared attention. Questions swirled and landed — where does this go, what if I try this, could we do it another way? But beneath all of the practical activity was something harder to describe. People were not simply making a mosaic. They were practicing trust, collaboration, listening, reflection, and care.
At the end of the final session, nobody rushed to leave.
People stayed around the mosaic to continue conversations, exchange contact information, write on stones, and help clean the room. What began as a workshop had become a temporary community.
That feeling is what stays with me most deeply after ten years of Countdown.
Over time, the project continued to grow in ways none of us anticipated. During the pandemic, Countdown adapted into outdoor workshops, online gatherings, digital story projects, mentorships, and art kits that moved through communities when people could not meet indoors. Workshops took place in parks, under tents, and in open spaces. Community members carried the work forward in new ways.
And still, despite everything the world has — and hasn’t — moved through over the last decade, people kept showing up.
They continued attending workshops, unveilings, and conversations. They continued writing messages on stones, creating mosaics, and imagining what healthier and more connected communities might look like.
The Countdown Public Art Project invites communities to imagine — or count down toward — a world without gender-based violence. That is an enormous aspiration. Public art alone cannot undo violence or inequality. But I do believe creative spaces can and do interrupt isolation, soften hierarchies, nurture connection, and remind us that we belong to something larger than ourselves.
Returning to Pikwàkanagàn First Nation, Killaloe and Eganville in 2026 to launch the fourth cycle of Countdown feels significant because it brings the project back to the places where so many relationships first took root. Returning does not feel like circling backward. It feels like deepening. Like revisiting the source of something that continues to ripple outward in new ways through many communities and many people.
This next cycle launches on June 13 with a workshop and concert, followed by many new ways to participate across the Ottawa Valley throughout the summer. But more than anything, it feels like another invitation: to gather, to create, to listen, and to imagine together.
Ten years later, people are still arriving — carrying stones, songs, stories, and the hope that something shared can still be built together. That still feels necessary.
– Anna Camilleri, The Countdown Public Art Project Co-Director & ReDefine Arts Artistic Co-Director
***
Read the rest of our Summer 2026 Newsletter here,
& click here to become a regular subscriber!
—
Learn more about the Countdown Public Art Project and this year’s events.