Blanketing The City Series
We’ve created a public art mural series and Reconciliation process in collaboration with acclaimed xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Weaver and Designer, Debra Sparrow. The series boldly affirms the resurgence and importance of Coast Salish weaving on these lands and directly combats the ongoing systemic suppression of Indigenous visual culture. The series has helped shape arts policy & city planning at City Hall while providing guidance to artists, organizations, and businesses who are committed to the ongoing work of Reconciliation and decolonization.
Year: 2018-Current
Debra is a self-taught Musqueam designer who was born and raised on the Musqueam Indian Reserve. She is an acclaimed weaver who has been weaving for twenty years and is deeply involved with the revival of Musqueam art and culture. She integrates her peoples' history into her work which can be seen in various museums and institutions. It is Debra's hope to educate others about the beauty and integrity of her people's history through her art.
Blanketing the City I
Artist, Debra Sparrow, and VMF celebrated the resurgence of Coast Salish weaving in a profoundly visible, public and accessible space in the centre of Granville Island. We helped transform Coast Salish textile patterns into a giant mural that incorporated contemporary design elements. This project was created for both Indigneous and non-Indigneous people to begin to build a deeper understanding of living Coast Salish Culture. The mural was painted on two cement pillars of the Granville Street Bridge that wrap around the 20 ft diameter pillars and measure over 44 ft in height. The shapes and colours were adapted from existing weavings by Debra Sparrow, some of which hang at International Airport’s standing collection. This mural was painted during Granville Island's Art Smash event.
Partner: Granville Island
Year: 2018
Blanketing the City II
This mural focuses on the powerful connection of Vancouver and its local Indigenous nations to the spirit and animals of the ocean. It includes more than one hundred unique and vibrant colours sampled from images of both above and below the Salish Sea's surface. The mural reflects a dive deep into the ocean starting from the top with shapes of our ice-age fjords, followed by the rainbow spectrum of the shallow waters, all the way down to local sea life like the wolf eel and glass sea sponges that live in the depths of Howe Sound. All of the shapes used are inspired by local traditional weaving patterns. At more than 8 stories tall, this mural is the largest piece of public art by an artist from one of the city’s three host nations (Musqueam, Squamish, or Tsleilwaututh) on whose unceded territory Vancouver currently resides.
Partner: Vancity
Year: 2019
Blanketing the City III
The idea for this mural was to transform the walls around the entrance of the building that houses the headquarters for VMF into an area that foregrounds the erased visibility of MST culture and people on these lands. The hope is that when VMF team members and visitors pass through this transformed area, their approach to their work will be grounded in the broader context of what it means to produce public art on unceded lands. The colour palate was inspired by the muted blues and whites of a partly cloudy day in Vancouver, the kind of weather best to view murals.
Commissioned By: Vancouver Mural Festival
Year: 2021
Blanketing the City IV: Cathedral Square
Debra Sparrow invited master weavers Chief Janice George (Sḵwxwú7mesh) and Angela George (səlilwətaɬ) to collaborate on the design of six landmark murals that blankets each of the six 30' columns of Cathedral Square Park in downtown Vancouver. Blanketing The City IV: Cathedral Square boldly transmits and magnifies the visibility of xwməθkwəyə̓ m, Sḵwxwú7mesh ̱and səlilwətaɬ culture on their ancestral lands. This project digs into a deep exploration of Indigenous visibility in public spaces via a multi-year collaboration between these weavers. As far as the participating artists are aware, this will be the first permanent public art collaboration between weavers from the three local nations in memory.
Partners: Quadreal Properties, City of Vancouver - Cultural Services, Vancouver Parks Board, BC Hydro, Downtown Vancouver BIA, Destination Canada
Year: 2021
Blanketing The City: Lighting The Way
Blanketing The City: Lighting The Way is the evolution of the on-going public art series and Reconciliation process designed by acclaimed xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Weaver and Graphic Designer, Debra Sparrow in collaboration with VMF. This new project took the series to the next level by illuminating iconic landmarks across Vancouver (Canada Place, BC Place, Science World, Yaletown: Bill Curtis Square) with large-scale lighting displays featuring transformed Coast Salish weaving patterns, colours and stories.
Partners: Downtown Vancouver BIA, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, BC Place, Science World, Yaletown BIA.
Year: 2022
Blanketing the City V
In 2021, Debra Sparrow invited master weavers Chief Janice George (Skwxwú7mesh) and Angela George (səlilwətaʔ ɬ) to collaborate on the historic design of six landmark murals believed to be the first semi-permanent public art collaboration between weavers from the three local nations. Now, for the fifth mural in the Blanketing the City series, and its first on Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh lands, the weavers are coming together once again. Chief Janice George, Buddy Joseph and Angela George host this collaboration with Debra Sparrow to transform an entire building on the Burrard Pier with the story of the Great Vancouver Fire, and the role that Indigenous first responders played in bringing people to safety across the Burrard Inlet.
Commissioned by: City of North Vancouver
Year: 2022
