The Talus Dome is a sculpture consisting of nearly 1,000[1] 316L stainless steel spheres of varying size, and is located in the river valley region of Edmonton, Alberta, southeast of the Quesnell Bridge.
Designed by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, two artists from Los Angeles,[1] the sculpture was constructed in autumn of 2011 by the Edmonton Public Art Collection at a total cost of roughly $600,000 Canadian dollars.
[2] The sculpture is named after talus, the collection of broken rock fragments at the base of a cliff or other steep rocky mass that has accumulated through periodic rockfall.
[1] The sculpture consists of a hollow dome formed from several hundred spheres of polished 316L stainless steel, arranged to resemble the talus formations previously present on the site, prior to the construction of Quesnell Bridge.
[2] Due to these critiques, Edmontonian artist Ryan McCourt called the sculpture "an embarrassment to our citizens, a symbol of the Edmonton Arts Council’s continued bungling of their portfolio, and an unforgivable waste of public funds.