Coast Salish art is in demand and transforming Vancouver's public art sphere

Globe and Mail

7 hours ago

For decades, Indigenous artists from Vancouver's local nations who wanted to make a living found the main path to success was to create something that looked like what non-Indigenous people recognized as 'their' art.
Totem poles. Face masks or murals with stylized Haida- or Kwakiutl-like designs from British Columbia's north. Baskets. More totem poles.
But now the city and its local nations are seeing an explosion of interest in and commissions for Coast Salish art, a style that is distinct from the totem poles and face masks typical of more northern nations. Coast Salish territory reaches from the Columbia River in Oregon and covers the Lower Mainland and parts of the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island.
Public installations of these styles are slowly transforming the look of Vancouver and offering residents a new awareness of the very different regional art traditions among B.C. Indigenous bands and nations. Those new art pieces are reviving traditional local styles and forging new approaches.
'I think I've created a new visual identity in my practice, through contemporary Coast Salish design,' says James Harry, a 35-year-old Squamish artist whose work was recently installed at the entrance to the prominent new PCI Developments rental and office tower going up at Broadway and Granville.
In collaboration with his creative partner Lauren Brevner, he is mounting the artwork on a two-storey high column, a blend of metal and charred cedar. The work is a representation of SínulhKa, the double-headed serpent that is prominent in Squamish legends.
It's meant to be just one of many elements of Coast Salish representation in Vancouver's Broadway Plan, which has a 'Cultural Ribbon' planned for the northern edge of the area crucial to the revitalization of one of the city's main east-west arteries.
Mr. Harry also just had a major piece mounted on the waterfront in Squamish, and a work at the new public pool in New Westminster was installed this year. He's doing commissions that will see his work displayed at the new SHAPE Properties development in Burnaby, B.C., and a retirement home in South Granville.
He sees all of his art as more than decorative objects. The works are meant to help people understand the underlying history and culture of the city.
'I want to get it out there,' says Mr. Harry. 'The work will do social and political work over decades.'
That's the hope of many who are involved in the new tide of local Indigenous art in the region.
'What I'm seeing is there's a recognition that Coast Salish identity has been absent from city planning and public-realm development,' says Ginger Gosnell-Myers, who was Vancouver's first Indigenous-relations manager and now works on a variety of consulting and community-building projects.
'It's a form of reconciliation and it's ensuring people in the Lower Mainland know whose distinct territories they are on.'
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One of the earliest Coast Salish artists to get commissions to work locally was Susan Point, a Musqueam printmaker and sculptor who started doing small pieces in Vancouver – metal medallions embedded in sidewalks, storm sewer covers – in the mid-'90s to mid-2000s. The Vancouver airport was also an early adopter of her work.
Now she's ubiquitous: A wooden gateway, titled People Amongst the People, in Stanley Park (2008); The Story of Life, a mural in pre-cast concrete funded by the Port of Vancouver near the North Vancouver terminals (2014); Salish Gifts made out of concrete, bronze and stone at the Marine Gateway development in south Vancouver (2015); the Water Guardians at Hazelgrove Park in Surrey, a stylized red metal lily pad with frogs (2016).
Ms. Point has said in the past that Coast Salish art went unrecognized and uncelebrated for many years because it came from areas where the new colonists to British Columbia settled heavily.
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Since those early years, demand has boomed for Coast Salish artists from a range of sources. A small group of private developers has worked to integrate art into their projects, the Grant family's PCI Developments in particular.
The developer is planning to incorporate more Coast Salish elements around the future Emily Carr SkyTrain station and not necessarily just physical art pieces. Recordings of storytelling or music may be included. More works are expected in the same area: Onni Group, Low Tide Properties (the real-estate operation of Lululemon founder Chip Wilson) and Vancouver Community College also all have building projects in the works.
BC Housing has commissioned work from Squamish artist Debra Sparrow, who will weave two blankets that will be translated to the façade of the new First United social housing building on East Hastings street. The B.C. government office planning the Broadway subway says it will incorporate Indigenous art at stations – but there is no word on whose work yet.
The many Indigenous-led development projects around the region, from Lelem near UBC lands, Kwesem in Burnaby, Jericho and Heather lands in Vancouver, and the Senakw development next to the Burrard Bridge are all incorporating the work of local artists.
City governments are also piling in, taking care to include bands and nations whose territory they are on. In Surrey, four different pieces by Kwantlen artist Phyllis Atkins adorn various parks and public places. In May, Katzie artist Rain Pierre celebrated the unveiling of his art piece featuring painted bears on glass at Maple Ridge's Albion Community Centre.
But Vancouver is the most active. The city's public-art program has seen six civic art projects by the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh launched in the last four years, along with 16 private-development projects. Among them, sculptures of ravens by Coast Salish artist Thomas Cannell will sit atop a new rental apartment building on the city's west side.
The city's art program also has four artworks from other Indigenous nations under way and another two completed at private developments in various places.
'Everybody has a sense there's a lot going on but no one knows the total scope,' says Eric Fredericksen, the head of Vancouver's public art program.
And the sudden crush is actually leading to some unintended consequences.
Cory Douglas, an Indigenous art consultant who has been hired by the city to develop concepts for the Broadway Plan, said there are about 300 Squamish artists in the Lower Mainland but only a dozen or so working in the Coast Salish art tradition, so those few artists are being swamped with potential commissions.
The new direction is also changing the demand for Indigenous artists who aren't Coast Salish members.
'It's pushing out urban Indigenous – there's not as much work for them,' said Ms. Gosnell-Myers about the many artists from bands and nations outside the Lower Mainland who now live in Vancouver. 'They don't have a town or an economy to support them and now there's less opportunity for them.
Still, there is excitement that Vancouver is becoming a living gallery for the new work that goes far beyond the conventional forms of public art.
'We have canoe carving, song, performance, painting, weaving,' says Mr. Douglas. 'All of these are being used as an inspiration. That is the power of our public art initiative.'