Public Art Registry
Kingsway Trail
Photo: Lila Bujold
Kingsway Trail
Kingsway Trail - photo by Lila Bujold
Installed along Kingsway from Main Street to Boundary Road
Civic
2012
Aluminum laminated signs
Two-dimensional artwork
In place
City of Vancouver
Celebrate Vancouver 125 - Changing Times: Shared History Markers
Description of work
As part of Vancouver’s 125th Anniversary, the City of Vancouver commissioned artist Sonny Assu to design a street marker to be installed along Kingsway from Main Street to Boundary Road. The signs mark Kingsway's shared history as an aboriginal foot trail and wagon road. The artwork incorporates the artists signature style of Pop-Culture-meets-Aboriginal Art to make this history visible in our daily lives. The marker is installed on both sides of Kingsway and mimics highway signs that identify the route, including a stylized maple leaf using coastal First Nations design elements. The project informs people of the ancient foot trail that connected the Fraser River and what later became New Westminster and False Creek and English Bay. The signs also acknowledge the early colonial history as a wagon road.
Artist statement
“As an urban indigenous person calling Vancouver home for many years, I wanted to honour the First Peoples history and Musqueam, Squamish and Tsail-wututh Nations with my work... In a project to acknowledge Vancouver's 125 years, I recognized the inequality in that conception of history. Hidden in plain sight, it seems we forgot to acknowledge the first 9000 years.” - Sonny Assu
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