This artwork is part of a series of Indigenous artwork, commissioned through the City’s Indigenous Artist Call 2019.  In February 2019, the City invited proposals for temporary painted murals and digital printed artwork within Vancouver’s public realm, located on the unceded ancestral homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish and TsleilWaututh peoples. In April 2019, proposals were shortlisted by a panel of urban and local Indigenous art experts, with six projects then recommended for commission. 

Tabay Nghuni Nzoo translates to “Beautiful Story” or “Your stories are very good”.

"I began the process of developing the art by thinking of Vancouver as a city and what has always stood out to me: the interplay of city and nature, the very direct relationship to water and the sea, the big skies. There has always been a deep appreciation of those who came before me tending to the land in such a way that even now natural beauty is a defining feature in a teeming city. The ancestors and spirit that sits deep in the land are always very apparent to me.

I wanted this art then to reflect this and also to be fantastical — to engage both the land and the imagination.

I used big colours that match dusk and dawn, I brought in highlights of the old meeting the new (the cherry blossoms versus the cedar), I focused on iconic landscapes within the geography that is Vancouver.  I depicted animals that we share space with everyday and perhaps do not see.  If you look close, you can identify them. I wanted to explore our connections with ancestors and spirit and life."