2025 Jeux du Canada Games Mural Unveiled

The City of St. John’s, in partnership with the 2025 Jeux du Canada Games, has unveiled a new public mural celebrating the history, culture, and contributions of the Francophone community in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“This mural brings an important part of our province’s story into view,” says Councillor Hickman, Council lead for Arts and Culture. “It honours the Francophone community’s long-standing contributions and enhances the cultural vibrancy of our downtown.”

Following a call for proposals in June 2025, the City selected Anastasia Tiller to create a mural that highlights the strength and vibrancy of the province’s Francophone heritage, honouring the community’s enduring role in shaping the cultural landscape of St. John’s and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The mural evolved through a highly collaborative process. Throughout the 2025 Canada Games, Anastasia and her in-progress canvases were on site at the Canada Games House in the St. John’s Convention Centre. Tiller invited athletes, families, spectators, volunteers, and all visitors to contribute to the mural’s design. Participants selected inspirational words, available in both French and English, and added drawings reflecting their home provinces, cultural motifs, or symbols of nature and sport. The result is a vibrant, community-created, quilt-like patchwork pattern that proudly reflects the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of both the Canada Games and the City of St. John’s.

The mural is now installed along the retaining wall on Duckworth Street, overlooking the parking lot at the corner of Duckworth Street and Holloway Street.

“This mural is a meaningful legacy piece that celebrates inclusion, creativity and the lasting impact of the Games on our community,“ says Karen Sherriffs, CEO of the 2025 Canada Games Host Society. “It was created in partnership with the Francophone community, City of St. John’s and the exceptional talent of Anastasia Tiller reflecting the true spirit of collaboration that defined the 2025 Canada Games.”

“The nature of the Duckworth street site dictated a theme for the mural, a traditional Newfoundland quilt, warm and cozy like a welcome every visitor receives in Newfoundland and Labrador,” says Anastasia Tiller. “I would like to thank the City of St. John’s and the 2025 Canada Games for accepting my application and granting me the honour of working on this project.”

The City of St. John’s and the 2025 Jeux du Canada Games each provided $20,000 toward the project.

The City has a strategic direction to be a Connected City where people have a sense of belonging and are actively engaged in community life. Developing and delivering programs, services, and public art that inspire creativity, celebrate culture, and enhance public spaces is key to advancing this direction.

About the Artist: Anastasia Tiller

Anastasia Tiller is a multidisciplinary artist residing in Lethbridge, NL. Anastasia has been exhibiting her work in Canada and internationally since 2008. Her work encompasses monochromatic figurative referencing photographic imagery, gestural flat paintings, and colourful pointillism landscapes. Her textile works move in a different direction all together. Anastasia takes a fun and whimsical new spin on the traditional Newfoundland and Labrador art of rug hooking. With a fantastical approach to ocean creatures, the imagery is a playful departure from traditional approaches.

Tiller is actively involved in the provincial visual arts community as an art teacher as well as being a member of the Visual Artists Newfoundland and Labrador Board of Directors in the past and is presently serving on several committees for the organization. She actively participates in the Francophone Community in the province.