Public Art Registry
The Waters are Rising
Photo: Rachel Topham
The Waters are Rising by Wade Baker - photo by Rachel Topham
Granville Bridge
1500 Blk of W 4th Avenue. Mural is on the Granville bridge support facing W 4th Avenue.
Civic
2019
Paint
Mural
In place
City of Vancouver
Indigenous Mural Artist Call 2019
Description of work

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 Tsleil Waututh peoples. In April 2019, proposals were shortlisted by a panel of urban and local Indigenous art experts, with six projects then recommended for commission. 

Artist statement

“The Waters are Rising” shares the legend of “The Great Flood” into the public realm. We feel this Granville Bridge South location is ideal for sharing this legend. This mural presents an Indigenous story from the cultural knowledge keepers in my extended family along the West Coast. The rope marks where the canoes were pulled up can still be seen on Mount Garibaldi and Mount Baker.

This Coast Salish version shows a Thunderbird warning the people that the waters are rising. The Thunderbird resides in the sun. He is the Creator’s messenger. He helps the people on earth by warning them of oncoming events, usually of storms, but now he speaks of climate change. He is telling the people that the waters will keep rising until the people take full stewardship of precious Mother Earth. The Tyee Salmon are the knowledge keepers, and the Eulochon fish represent the learners. I have chosen this theme due to Indigenous concerns about stewardship of the land and waters, and the climate change crisis that is upon us.


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