Native Art for 2010

The Beat Volume III, Issue 10 October, 2009

Two important works of art by Michael Nicolls Yahgulanaas and Thomas Cannell were presented to the public in early September. They are among forty-five pieces commissioned for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in February 2010 for venues in Richmond, Vancouver and Whistler.

The secondary site for hockey events is the University of British Columbia’s Thunderbird Arena. Cannell’s work, Thunder, is a 5-metre cedar panel showing a radiant sun, with two thunderbirds carrying salmon and eggs up to it.

Yahgulanaas has created a Haida Manga-style work called Take Off. A bird-like creature taking flight was created from copper encrusted re-cycled Volvo fenders and door, painted with black formline designs.

These pieces join others already installed at the arena, including Musqueam Joe Becker’s yellow cedar panel of a Thunderbird, a textile piece by Debra Sparrow, a carving by Chrystal Sparrow, and a carving by Irving Sparrow.

Lakota-Sioux artist Dana Warren is one of six curators presenting Code Screen 2010, a series of bi-weekly online exhibitions of contemporary Canadian downloaded to your computer from the web, as a countdown to Vancouver’s Olympic Games in February 2010. Visitors to http://www.vancouver2010.com/code can apply to be alerted when these new exhibitions are posted.

The Beat is an independent, not-for-profit project, written and published in Vancouver Canada by Ann Cameron. ©2008, Ann Cameron.
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