Temporary Mural Installation Lands in East Victoria Park
CMLC provides location for shipping container mural by local artist
Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) – the placemaking and development team that is leading the Rivers District Master Plan for east Victoria Park has partnered with Springboard Performance to help realize a temporary mural installation adjacent to Enoch Park. The installation marks the second placemaking gesture in the district as CMLC works to advance a holistic community vision for Calgary’s future Culture and Entertainment District.
“As we’ve expanded our focus into east Victoria Park through the development of the Rivers District Master Plan, this installation was an opportunity to help activate the street-level and bring people into the community,” says Clare LePan, Director Marketing and Communications. “We’ve previously worked with Springboard Performance on their containR project in East Village and saw this installation as a small gesture of the type of placemaking programs that we feel are important in starting to craft new experiences in the community.”
Entitled Fireflies at Twilight - the special containR installation was created in honour of the land and people of Treaty 7 Territory. Inspired by Siksika First Nation’s Chief Crowfoot’s quote “What is Life?”, the project was spearheaded by non-profit arts organization Springboard Performance in collaboration with Governor General Award winning Siksika artist Adrian Stimson. Stimson has created an inspiring visual interpretation of the quote on a mural installation comprised of 2 forty-foot shipping containers.
“A little while and I will be gone from among you, whither I cannot tell. From nowhere we come, into nowhere we go. What is life? It is a flash of firefly in the night. It is a breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” – Chief Crowfoot
“Fireflies at Twilight gave me the opportunity to visualize Chief Crowfoot’s last words, like Writing on Stone, the surface of the container offered me an opportunity to explore the theme in an unconventional way and to tell stories, says visual artist Adrian Stimson. “The Fireflies, the bison, the landscape, re-imagined petroglyphs, Treaty Seven, Chief Crowfoot and his last words, combine to make space for Indigenous knowledge and understanding. I believe art can inspire change, containR can hold those stories and be that space where we can re-imagine our relationships to each other and the land we inhabit.”
This project was realized with the support of the Calgary Foundation and the Community Fund for Canada’s 150th, a collaboration between Calgary Foundation, the Government of Canada, and extraordinary leaders from coast to coast to coast, as well as a CIP Community Investment Program Grant, offered through the Government of Alberta. CMLC supported the project through production support and the site location adjacent to Enoch Park on land owned by the organization.
“containR has always worked to connect communities through art, and we hope with this installation to create opportunities for all Calgarians, including indigenous and non-indigeneous youth, to add to the containR, to inspire individuals to tell their stories,” add Nicole Mion artistic director, Springboard Performance.
Fireflies at Twilight will be in place until November 2018.
