Interview: Blanketing the City IV Artist Angela George
Blanketing The City is a public art mural series and Reconciliation process designed by acclaimed xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Weaver and Graphic Designer, Debra Sparrow in collaboration with Vancouver Mural Festival. Begun in 2018, the series boldly affirms the resurgence and importance of Coast Salish weaving on these lands, and directly combats the ongoing systemic suppression of Indigenous visual culture. For this project, Debra Sparrow invited master weavers Chief Janice George (Sḵwxwú7mesh) and Angela George (səlilwətaɬ) to collaborate on the design of 7 landmark murals blanketing Cathedral Square Park.
In our interview series, we reached out to each artist involved with the project to learn more about their experience and what Blanketing the City means to them. This interview features Angela George, one of the three master weavers and artists of this piece.
Angela lives and works in the səl’ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nation in North Vancouver with her husband, Gabriel George, grandson of late Chief Dan George and her four children. Angela has dedicated her career to the betterment of First Nations people and communities. Traditionally groomed, she has a strong understanding of her culture, spiritual teachings and the impacts of colonization and barriers that plague First Nations communities. She is humbled by the gift of traditional weaving, holding this connection to her late mother and Squamish ancestry dearly. Angela loves to learn and teach weaving and strives to carry this sacred practice with the utmost integrity.
VMF: What is important in this collaboration for you?
AG: Any collaborative art project opportunity to bridge between our communities at all levels is truly inspirational and important work that brings unity, harmony and greater awareness. Art is an intriguing and beautiful way to create awareness and understanding in a non-threatening manner that embraces and weaves us all together with our common ground as well as our unique and diversities.
VMF: What does Blanketing the City mean for you?
AG: In our Coast Salish customs, to blanket someone signifies a genuine embrace of love and protection. Blanketing the City is a powerful movement that reclaims the ancestral territory, in a sense it’s wrapping the ancestors who once roamed this land we now call Vancouver. Ceremonial Blankets are also meant to cover the hearts and minds of the common work at hand, and so this sends a strong message and prayer that covers the hearts and minds of us all. It is vital that the laws of the land and the original people of this land are upheld in acknowledged in this manner.
“Art is an intriguing and beautiful way to create awareness and understanding in a non-threatening manner that embraces and weaves us all together with our common ground as well as our unique and diversities. ”
VMF: What is transforming the art of weaving into public art like?
AG: Transforming my weaving designs into public art is a beautiful journey that begins with introspection and reaching back into past generations to explore the laws of the land and deep ancient wisdom and knowledge that our Weaving designs hold. And taking those design elements and relaying them on a public art scale is upholding my role and responsibility to share that knowledge in a way that upholds the integrity of our ancestral knowledge going back 7 generations to be sustained for the future 7 generations to come. We are bridging diverse communities throughout this city, as well as bringing the generations past present and future.
VMF: What is the significance of having an artist from each nation coming together for this collaborative piece?
AG: It’s important to honour and uphold the branches of our xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlil̓wətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) communities who hold deep roots to this land. We were all one people originally, and our families are all interconnected. Every opportunity we have to weave the fabric of us together once again helps to heal and repatriate what’s been lost through colonial impacts.
