The Art of Neighbourhoods
West Point Grey and Kitsilano

Community Stepping Stones: Pebble Mosaics of West Point Grey (1997-2000)

Project Site: Located in the grounds of the community centre at 4397 West 2nd Avenue, and throughout the community. Maps are available at the centre as well as on the West Point Grey page of the Park Board web site at www.vancouverparks.ca

Artist/Facilitator: Glen Andersen

The Community Stepping Stones project involved area residents in a process of creating pebble mosaics to mark significant places in the neighbourhood. The project came out of a combination of the neighbourhood's desire to create community connections and expand awareness of the community centre and artist Glen Andersen's desire to have cities look and feel different. "Part of the reason we are so attracted to the simple earthiness of pebble mosaics is that we wander through largely de-natured landscapes, depersonalized environments where the origins of materials is unknown. Eventually we stop wondering, and we lose emotional connections with the spirit of this place. These mosaics are conversation starters. Conversations can lead to discussions, debates, revolutions or simply new acquaintances. Mosaics are like communities; each individual piece is essential to the larger picture."

Also on site:

West Point Grey Banner Project (1995)

Community-created collages were translated into colourful fabric banners during a residency with artist Carole Davenport. "... (The) success of the project was measured in the community process of working together and sharing creativity." Once completed, the banners were paraded at a community celebration and then hung from the banister rails where they are framed by the dark wood of the lobby area.

Lost Streams of Kitsilano (1994)

Project Sites: Copper map installations at Kitsilano Beach just south of the playground; Volunteer Park at Point Grey Road; at the foot of Bayswater, and at Jericho Beach approx 100 m. west of the concession. In-ground markers found along lost stream beds. Further information on sites available at Kitsilano Community Centre.

Artist: Marion Penner Bancroft

This project was the result of a long process of researching and photographing the local landscape and consultation with members of the community, Park Board and the School Board. The work consists of 16 in-ground and 4 above ground markers installed along the routes of four historical streams that once existed in Kitsilano. Each of the in-ground markers has the words LOST STREAM engraved around the outer edge. Each marker also contains engraved words on two themes; first, along the edges, two-word phrases for the agents of the demise of the stream e.g. "Logging railway" and second, in the centre, four kinds of plant and animal life that have disappeared e.g. "sockeye, thimbleberry, lynx and fir". Artist Marion Penner Bancroft writes, "...my desire became to find a way of recalling what was now invisible, of marking the routes of the streams and in doing so to call up an earlier image of this place, to bring some history into the present... I also installed at (Kitsilano) Community Centre a set of black and white photographs, two for each (stream) path. These are close up images of where the streams once were, paired with images of trees that are fed by the underground flows, those vestiges of another landscape. "

Go to:

Introduction to the Art of Neighbourhoods
Listing of Projects by Neighbourhood and Map
Contact Information

Champlain Heights	Marpole
Douglas Park	Mount Pleasant/Riley Park
Downtown Eastside	Strathcona & Hastings/Sunrise
Dunbar	Sunset
Grandview-Woodlands	West End
Kensington/Cedar Cottage

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