'A gift for the city': Indigenous art park just weeks away from September opening
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Final touches are underway at the city’s first Indigenous art park, which will boast artworks including colourful mosaic turtles and towering Cree syllabics.
“We’re so excited,” said David Turnbull, director of public art and conservation at the Edmonton Arts Council. “It’s a huge feat for us to be able to put in a permanent sculpture park … it’s a gift for the city.”
The art park, located at the centre of Queen Elizabeth Park on the south bank of the North Saskatchewan River, will open in September.
The city unveiled the six chosen sculptures in 2016.
The piece titled Iskotew is comprised of large Cree syllabics representing the word for fire, which is similar to the Cree work for woman, iskwew. The tallest of the symbols, sculpted in vibrant colours reminiscent of traditional beadwork, is nearly two metres tall.
The park also includes two turtles with colourful mosaics on their backs, referencing the creation story common to many Indigenous cultures.
A third sculpture involves the concrete reproduction of a 9,000-year-old hide scraper made from buffalo bone. Nearly four-metres long, it aims to pay respect to the central roles of buffalo and women in history.
“Seeing these pieces initially proposed a few years ago to seeing them now completed, it’s just mind blowing,” said Turnbull, adding that landscaping is underway ahead of the park’s opening. “You never really get a sense of the sculptures in their place until … you experience them in real life, being able to go up to them on that human scale and have that intimate relationship with them, to be able to touch them.”
The park design took Edmonton’s harsh winter into consideration.
“Some pieces intentionally become hidden, other pieces become more amplified up against the snow,” he said.
The art park, with a budget of $700,000, first was proposed in 2012.
The construction included careful excavation to save any artifacts, Turnbull said, noting at least one arrowhead was found.
Its site holds spiritual significance.
“The banks of the North Saskatchewan have been a gathering place for centuries so it’s really just an extension of that,” Turnbull said. “It’s a place where the different groups would gather to trade.
“It’s kind of a reclamation of a place,” he added.
The park is the result of collaboration between the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, the Métis Nation of Alberta, Indigenous community members, the Edmonton Arts Council and the city.
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