By Alizé Honen-Delmar

What if parking lots walls were used to host art? That’s what the P.ART.KING project is all about, it brings art where we park.

Underground parking lots are usually quite dull and only seen for their utilitarian purpose but P.ART.KING decided to embellish them with murals from local artists to enhance the customers’ experience and democratize arts.

This project emerged in the fall 2020 in Montreal when it won the public prize of the QI_Connexion contest organized by the Quartier de l’Innovation and SDC Montréal centre-ville. Since then, in collaboration with LNDMRK, underground parking lots are transforming into P.ART.KING with stunning murals added onto their walls, all produced from local and emerging artists. Simply put, this project uses the enormous potential of the large white walls of parking lots as its canvas!

Landmark buildings of Montreal such as Place Ville Marie, 1000 de la Gauchetière and Place Montréal Trust got their underground parking lots embellished with unique colorful murals and the feedback has been astonishing! Members of these properties and the users of their parking lots were impressed by this added value that was brought by this project. It felt like a “ray of sunshine in their day”, a customer said.

P.ART.KING collaborates with local artists that create colorful art pieces conveying a positive message of connection, togetherness and hope. The first production of this project, the urban jungle realized by Caitlin McDonagh in the lobby of Place Ville Marie parking, transformed the entire customers experience of this property. Likewise, Place Montréal Trust parking lot benefited from the P.ART.KING project with the addition of 3 impressive murals on the top walls of its ramp entrance. This series created by Julian Palma, has completely changed this parking lot and people started mentioning it as the parking with the impressive bird mural.

This new marketing asset for these proprieties all made them stand out thanks to this unique experience their customers lived as soon as they entered their parking lot. Montreal underground parking lots are becoming more and more colourful with the stunning pieces of arts that have been realized in the last few months. All of these properties that enhanced their parking lots with arts are connected through the P.ART.KING Parcours that keeps growing month after month.

The ambition of P.ART.KING is to change the way we see parking thanks to arts, soon we might all think of parking as concrete museums!

To know more about P.ART.KING, you can visit www.partking.co or follow us on social media @p.art.king

P.ART.KING co-produced with LNDMRK these first 3 productions in Montreal.