A hot-pink psychedelic piano anchors a park recital as a pipa player in orange performs for rows of children.

2015 – 2023 · the visual archive

Every piano isa stage

Each photograph captures the vibrant essence of the project: pianos on mountaintops and street corners, painted by community artists, played by anyone. A visual journey through the joy and community spirit our public pianos bring to neighbourhoods across the region, 2015 to 2023.

A splatter-painted upright asks WHAT INSPIRES YOU? in big white letters, covered in handwritten answers.
An elderly man in a denim jacket plays a doodle-covered upright on a Chinatown sidewalk as a trolley bus rolls past.
A mother in red florals and a girl in white play a rainbow polka-dot piano together outside a mall entrance.
A lone player at an upright in the middle of a car-free Main Street, festival tents and mountains down the avenue.
Low golden sun floods a boardwalk as a teenager plays a pastel sea-creature piano. The last song of the day.
A small girl stands on a stool to reach the keys of a towering red baroque-painted upright in a garden.
A man in a straw fedora plays a sky-blue piano at the edge of a pier, the Vancouver skyline hazy across the water.
A Mondrian-style piano in bold colour blocks, crawling with ceramic butterflies, with its matching bench.
A white piano stamped with rainbow handprints on trailhead grass at Grouse Mountain, wet-paint sign still taped up.
Two girls share a bench at a vivid red piano painted with an inukshuk, tall ship and thunderbird in stained-glass style.
A cartoon-eyed blue upright grins in a chandelier-lit theatre lobby with red-carpeted grand staircases.
A hot-pink psychedelic piano anchors a park recital as a pipa player in orange performs for rows of children.
A piano transformed into a giant vintage travel suitcase with leather straps, postcard stamps, and a painted blue jay.
Friends gather around a forest-mural piano under a shady tree at Spanish Banks, mountains across the sparkling water.
An underwater-themed upright wrapped in golden kelp, starfish and rockfish on cobalt water.
In golden late-afternoon light, a woman plays a dark-wood upright at a crosswalk corner, red balloons overhead.
A whole summer camp mugs for the camera around the rainbow-handprint piano in a sun-dappled forest clearing.
A honeycomb piano with a giant green bee, collaged with bottle caps and sea glass, at the Science World playground.
Beethoven from sheet music on a silver baby grand striped with pink, orange and blue racing lines, beside busy Kingsway.
A toddler kneels on a painted bench, arms stretched across the keys of a piano lettered 'No act of kindness is ever wasted'.
A children's choir in red sings at a North Vancouver pier stage, led from a spotted sky-blue piano, SeaBus beyond.
A young man in a straw boater leans into a weathered chalk-doodled piano: 'Found this piano on the street, and had to give it some love.'
Five smiling volunteers lean shoulder-to-shoulder over a chartreuse folk-art piano at a community-centre launch party.
The student-painted piano 'Our Beautiful World is not meant to be Broken', centred on a forest boardwalk.
A woman in a violet satin dress plays a gleaming black baby grand under a clear-walled tent, red balloons over the open lid.
Piano and banjo jam at a lantern-strung bus exchange while an audience in folding chairs listens.
Six young women lean chin-in-hands around an orange-and-green piano in a sunny park circle, listening.
A duo busks on a corner near Main Street with a ribbon-striped piano and an acoustic guitar.
The Canuck Place Children's Hospice piano with purple fallboard, lime trim, and snapshots of kids, among tall liatris planters.
A sky-blue upright painted with a night-to-day mountain mural outside Lynn Valley Village shops.
A boy plays a flame-red sunburst piano in golden afternoon sun, a red balloon bobbing on the piano top.
A toddler in an orange shark t-shirt reaches the keys of the forest-mural upright, parked against beach driftwood.
Organizers and supporters pose around a powder-blue Pacey's Pianos upright under a white sail canopy on a waterfront pier.
A boy in bright orange plays a folk-art piano with a Canadian maple motif, right on the sidewalk.
A rainbow polka-dot piano shelters under a rainbow umbrella in a tiled atrium.
Student-painted panels of waterfalls, cherry blossoms and a crystal city, with every artist's name signed along the key rail.
A teenager plays the red baroque sunburst piano in a garden while a man on a cajón keeps time.
A white piano striped with ribbons of yellow, blue and orange waits with a cobalt bench on a quiet cafe corner.
Backpack still on, an elderly man reaches over the bench to try the doodle piano on a Chinatown sidewalk.
Artists crowd a studio to hand-paint a piano, paint cans balanced on the lid.
A woman in a white summer dress plays the butterfly-covered Mondrian piano from its colour-block bench.
A white piano hand-lettered #LoveHowYouGive waits stage-side while a young choir performs.
A pianist plays a rainbow-handprint piano beneath a red canopy on the Grouse Mountain plaza, crowd seated all around.
A silver baby grand mid-makeover, panels masked with newspaper and tape while fresh candy stripes dry.
Three friends huddle over a Cole Porter songbook on a pink-and-blue camo piano in a palm-lined courtyard.
A freshly primed all-white upright waits in a parking-lot Paint Zone, a blank canvas before the artists arrive.

All images © Pianos on the Street. No images may be reproduced without written consent. For press use, contact [email protected].