Wrapped in wool and copper : encountering Musqueam art at Vancouver's Granville at 70th development project ...

• Main Author: Ariss, Alison
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2017
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0355270; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0355270

Musqueam artworks are not an unusual sight in Vancouver: wool weavings and carved sculptures welcome visitors to major public institutions throughout the city. The recent cəsna?əm: City Before the City exhibitions that opened in January 2015 drew attention to the ongoing work of Musqueam people in maintaining their territory, language, and cultural practices in the face of colonial settlement and urban expansion. At Granville at 70th, an urban development project completed in 2014, Musqueam weavings and sculptures are set into an architectural environment that is wrapped in copper cladding, a material signified by the developers as one highly valued by Indigenous peoples. The project specifically references copper belongings in an ancient ancestor burial, from the nearby cəsna?əm village. However, copper is not a material considered especially valuable by Musqueam people, although it is central in ceremonial, social and political practices of some First Nations whose territories lie further north on the ...