The Library's placemaking journey began in 2017 with meetings with the Indigenous Place Making Council of Canada. Under their guidance, we visited the Stoney Nakoda, Siksika, Tsuut'ina, and Métis Nations of Alberta, as well as the Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary for input on making Indigenous visual and oral storytelling more prominent in Library locations.
Indigenous Placemaking is the ongoing result. This initiative develops traditional and contemporary artworks that promote understanding of Indigenous peoples and cultures within Treaty 7 territory.
The creation of these works inspires collaboration among artists of all disciplines, backgrounds, and experience levels. Having these pieces in the Library helps create an inclusive space for sharing and gathering of all Nations and communities to learn and grow together.
Supported by Suncor Energy Foundation.
New installations are unveiled at Crowfoot, Saddletowne, Seton, and Shawnessy.
Placemaking branches out into the community with new pieces at Forest Lawn and Signal Hill, as well as more work at Central.
Meet the artists whose work was unveiled as part of the Central Library's opening.
These four works are permanently installed at Crowfoot, Seton, Saddletowne, and Shawnessy libraries. They include work by eight artists and are part of the third round of Indigenous Placemaking at Calgary Public Library. The installations will be officially unveiled on June 26, 2021.
These installations include an augmented reality wall, a narrative depicted through three-dimensional steel and aluminum figures , a mural depicting the cosmology of traditional Blackfoot storytelling, traditional men's dance regalia, and a pictorial history of the Baker Massacre.
In 2018, six installations were permanently installed in Central Library. They include a triptych representing the past, present, and future that welcomes you into the library, a buffalo sculpture that includes language text from local Indigenous groups, furnishings that are a response to displacement in the Elders' Guidance Circle, and art that capture childbood lessons and beauty in landscape.
