Environmental art

Fringe by Shirley Wiebe
Photograph by Paul Colangelo

Learn more about local environmental art projects and find out how you can participate in these unique initiatives, all part of the Park Board's commitment to providing art experiences in everyday life and advocating for healthy and sustainable environments.

Environmental art is:

  • Created with natural materials
  • Designed to be non-destructive or ecologically beneficial, or both
  • Specific to its site

Environmental art projects

Trillium Park North - Earthand Gleaners Society

Woven plantsLocal artists, weavers, and community members, together with Park Board groundskeepers, are maintaining the park. Part community garden and part commons, the plantings at Trillium North have been specifically chosen because of how they can be used by hand using traditional methods.

The park's specific design features include the ability for on-site processing of materials by groups, as well as material storage bays for tools and works in progress. 

Once the plantings have been established, the garden will change seasonally as crops are harvested.

Means of Production garden

MOPPARC participants The interdisciplinary collective uses materials harvested from their site's plantings or re-examining the creative potential in under-used urban zones.

Means of Production (MOP) engages an urban community of local residents, environmentalists, visual artists, crafters, and performers in creating art through a living and productive landscape.

Moberly Cultural Herb Garden

The Moberly Cultural Herb GardenThe Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre garden is being developed into a community space for growing herbs and medicinal plants under the guidance of Lori Snyder, an indigenous eco artist and educator. 

Participate in drop-in workshops and gardening sessions to get up close and personal with some herbs that are easy to grow in your garden, and learn how to use them to create important medicines, salves, remedies, teas and more. 

Aberthau Community and Eco Art Garden

A woman viewing plants at Aberthau Garden Broadening how the contemporary city garden bed is viewed and used, the raised gravel area behind Aberthau House has been turned into garden beds with a combined focus on textile plants and local food.

This garden emphasizes permaculture design elements while offering inclusive social, educational, culinary, and cultural activities for community members.

Environmental education and stewardship

Adults and children looking at plants in a community garden Parks offer a gateway to nature in the city. As a community, we can care for parks together and use these spaces to get closer to nature and each other.

Legacy project

Stanley Park Environmental Art Project

Xapayay, an Stanley Park Environmental Art ProjectThe Stanley Park Environmental Art Project was born out of a desire to respond creatively to the windstorm that devastated the park on December 15, 2006. The storm had a tremendous impact on the park, but out of the devastation arose opportunities to renew, restore, and improve the park.

Six talented artists created artworks that engaged the public and honoured the park's significance.

Past projects

Terrior: Urban Cloth Project

Cloth being made from natural fibresTerroir, meaning a sense of place, is a community project where members discover and create local cloth using available plants and techniques from a variety of cultures.

The project brings together First Nation gathering traditions, early settler agricultural methods, and contemporary environmental art practices, while investigating urban cloth production.

Urban Weaver art project

The Urban Weaver art projectThe Urban Weaver supports artists from diverse traditions working with ecologists to explore the creative repurposing of green waste.

The Weaving Wagon

Th Weaving WagonTerroir, meaning a sense of place, is a community project where members discover and create local cloth using available plants and techniques from a variety of cultures.

The Weaving Wagonnis EartHand’s pop-up studio and pick-up truck for green waste. Inside there’s a strange collection of archaic tools, some fascinating hand-made objects, some books and references, and probably some large bundles of sticks, vines, leaves or animal fleece.

When the Weaving Wagon arrives at its destination, the facilitator will flip down the side panels, open the back, haul out the equipment and set out the collections and references, getting ready to amaze an audience with ancient ways of being and doing, and the lessons and creative fulfillment we can find in them.