with its architectural design, has captivated millions of travellers who pass through the airport each year, garnered numerous awards, inspired wide media coverage and served as a model to other airports around the world.
In the late 1980s, while YVR was still being managed by Transport Canada, modest efforts were made to enliven the facility through the display of contemporary aboriginal art from British Columbia. However, the commissioning and display of such art had yet to become a priority at what was considered “a very functional and in some ways undersized airport.” 1 Things changed dramatically in 1992 when Vancouver Airport Authority took over the management of YVR and plans were made for an ambitious and visually arresting expansion and renovation of the passenger terminals. At that time, a commitment was made to direct up to one percent of building capital expenditures to the commissioning of art for placement throughout YVR, and to fully consolidating these works with the overall architectural plan.
The mission statement for art and archi-tecture in the newly expanded airport called for the celebration of the natural beauty and cultural heritage of British Columbia. Both could be used to tell the story of this place — to convey to visitors the unique character of the province the airport serves. Essential to YVR’s vision was and is the presentation
of outstanding works — from figurative sculptures, silkscreen prints and copper panels to transformation masks, ceremonial paddles and totem poles — by contemporary First Nations artists from British Columbia. The YVR Art Foundation was established in 1993. This charitable organization fosters the development of B.C. First Nations art and artists through scholarships and other programs. As a further commitment to YVR’s art program, a curator was hired to oversee the growing collection, which now numbers over two hundred works and is one of the most significant of its kind in the world.
In the mid-1990s, the creation of the Musqueam Welcome Area and the purchase and installation of Bill Reid’s acclaimed bronze sculpture The Spirit of Haida Gwaii: The Jade Canoe dramatically launched YVR’s comprehensive art program. The additions powerfully identified the airport with the most distinctive visual art created in British Columbia. But who are the people whose cultural presence has contributed so much to the story of this place?
Isolated by mountains, forests and long, wet winters on the narrow, broken margin of the sea, the first peoples of the North Pacific Coast of North America evolved, over many thousands of years, sophisticated fishing, hunting and gathering technologies and complex systems of religious belief, social
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structure and economic exchange. They also developed a distinctive material culture, with a monumental scale and wealth of expression that were unmatched in Native America anywhere north of pre-Columbian Mexico. The abundance of food sources on the Northwest Coast (most pivotally, the annual salmon runs) allowed for a seasonal division of the year. Summers were spent accumulating and processing food. In the winter, they planned and performed social and religious rituals, using the art that they produced for the ceremony. Towering and abundant evergreens, such as red cedar, provided the basic material for much of the art and all of the architecture.
The nature-based mythology at the heart of Northwest Coast First Nations culture explains the making of the world and its inhabitants, and recounts ways in which distant ancestors garnered special privi-leges through encounters with supernatural animals and beings. These privileges, includ-ing dances, songs, masks, stories and the right to display crest images, were and are regarded as private property. Fiercely guarded, they have been passed from generation to generation through properly observed public rituals such as the feasting and gift-giving events known as potlatches. The art of the Northwest Coast makes visible complex social orders, records important family histories
and describes the individual’s place within the cosmos. The best known of the area’s art forms are carved and painted totem poles, inter-nationally esteemed for their impressive scale, technical accomplishment and visual impact. (The term “totem pole” is a misnomer, since the figures represented are more heraldic than totemic; however, it is so widely used that it has become established and accepted.)2 Carved in cedar, they vary in form, content and function, and include memorial poles, house frontal poles, interior house posts and mortuary poles.
Because of their shared, homogeneous environment, Northwest Coast peoples devel-oped similar technologies and mega-cultural traits but remain divided by language and distinctive art styles and traditions. Running mostly from north to south, the Northwest Coast First Nations of British Columbia are identified as Tlingit, Tahltan, Haida, Nisga’a, Gitxsan, Tsimshian, Haisla, Heiltsuk, Nuxalk, Oweekeno, Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth and Coast Salish. Within these nations, smaller subgroups exist, distinguished by their own dialects and cultural traditions.3 For example, the Musqueam, on whose traditional lands YVR stands, are a Coast Salish people who spoke a dialect of the Salishan language Halkomelem. Their lengthy history, rich culture and traditional claim to this place are integral to the Musqueam Welcome Area at YVR. A wide range of art from different First Nations traditions, representing
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other areas of the province, has also been installed throughout the International and Domestic Terminals.
Although European contact and trade with Northwest Coast First Nations stimulated art production in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the increasing colonial presence eventually proved disastrous. By the early twentieth century, disease, depopu-lation, missionizing and government policies (such as anti-potlatch laws and the imposition of the residential school system) had badly eroded traditional indigenous cultures. For a few decades, mask-making and large-scale carving were actively preserved in only a few communities and lay dormant in many others. In some cases, remnants of classical Northwest Coast design survived in the form of miniature poles, figures and canoes produced for the tourist market. The art was never completely extinguished, however, and from the 1950s onward it has seen an extra-ordinary resurgence, attracting national and international acclaim and finding an honoured place in non-Native collection and display, while also serving First Nations cere-monial needs and stimulating the recovery of other, more ephemeral cultural practices. New masks have been danced, new poles have been carved and raised, and the transfer or bestowal of family stories, names and privil-eges has been validated through potlatches.
The important decision to focus on aboriginal art from British Columbia in the development of YVR’s art program has meant commissioning and exhibiting major works from leading First Nations artists, many of whom have been active as teachers and mentors to younger generations. YVR has also supported the production of monumental art by emerging First Nations artists. For some, such commissions have resulted in the largest sculptures or instal-lations of their careers to date. The works created specifically for the International and Domestic Terminals reveal a deep respect for cultural traditions and, at the same time, a willingness to explore new and innovative forms, styles and materials. For those travel-ling through YVR, such art expresses the powerful presence and creativity of the first peoples of British Columbia, alerting us to the extraordinary and particular place in which we find ourselves.
1 Frank O’Neill, in an interview with the author, August 22, 2014. 2 Hilary Stewart, Looking at Totem Poles (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993), p. 12.3 Cheryl Shearar, Understanding Northwest Coast Art (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), p. 9.
In early 1996, a team of workers, using a large construction crane, manoeuvred