A 43-metre-long steel sculpture has joined Vancouver’s streetscape at Knight Street and 33rd Avenue as the newest addition to the City’s public art collection.
Abundance Fenced by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas features a playful adaptation of contemporary Haida design and runs along the top of a concrete retaining wall beside Kensington Park, serving as a decorative railing beside the pedestrian path.
A community celebration of the work will be held on Saturday, December 3 at 10 a.m. in the Kensington Community Centre, Seniors’ Lounge, 5175 Dumfries Street.
Abundance Fenced was inspired by the plentiful 2010 Fraser River salmon run and Yahgulanaas sees the artwork as a tribute to the exceptional return and celebration of the resilience of the species.
The sculpture depicts two sets of stylized orca whales facing opposite directions with their tail flukes meeting in the centre and their faces rising up to define a metaphorical passageway. The whales pursue cascading salmon down a slope towards the North Shore mountains. The salmon are welded together in a timeless pursuit to represent a system of interdependence essential to all of us.
Yahgulanaas created the work in the Haida Manga style he developed which is a fusion of Northwest Coast First Nations design elements and Japanese graphic animation. He has published award-winning graphic books, most recently Red (Douglas and McIntyre, 2009). His works of art in a variety of media are in museums, galleries, and private collections around the world.
Abundance Fenced was commissioned by the City of Vancouver as part of the Clark-Knight Corridor Public Art Plan. Details about the plan and Vancouver’s Public Art Program are available at vancouver.ca/publicart.
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