Lunar New Year lanterns grace tiny Morton Park
The A-maze-ing Laughter sculpture has a new neighbour for a little while in Morton Park. That’s because on February 21, just west of the enormous smiling bronze Buddhas, six large, colourful lanterns were installed in the West End greenspace on the edge of English Bay.
Entitled We Are a Family, this installation is part of the Lantern City project to celebrate Lunar New Year. The Society of We Are Canadians Too placed them in the park as a companion to the Coastal Lunar Lanterns installation, which is also part of Lantern City and is on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
A diverse group of artists were involved in the We Are a Family installation to celebrate the Year of the Ox. Their heritage is highlighted in the park. From left to right in the photograph, these lanterns are named The Sweet Buzz of Community, by Kent Chan-Kusalik (Chinese and Canadian); Coastal Memories, by Tierney Milne (Canadian); Waves of Culture, by Bert Monterona (Filipino and Canadian); Oxen, by Pierre Luigi Vassura (Italian and Canadian); Katribo, by Mario (MAYO) Landicho (Filipino and Canadian); and Salish Snowflake, by Cory Douglas (Squamish Nation).
On the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery, four of the Coastal Lunar Lanterns were designed by three generations of the Musqueam band’s Point-Cannell family, including one by famed artist Susan Point. The other four lanterns on the north side of the VAG were designed by three generations of the Pavavaljung family, who are Paiwanese Indigenous artists in southern Taiwan. g