CVAG Plaza
PUBLIC PLACE : SACRED SPACE is a multi-year program that integrates themes of welcoming, gathering and healing through the incorporation of Indigenous place-naming, site installations, a full circle tea garden, exhibitions, cross-cultural sharing, performance, video screenings, workshops, gatherings and residencies. The undertaking was a collaboration between the Comox Valley Art Gallery, participating artists, curators, Elders, the K’ómoks First Nation community and the City of Courtenay.
Together, the components in this program are seen as a step toward reconciliation and recognition of the historic relationships the K’ómoks peoples have had with this Valley for thousands of years.
PLACE NAMING – Qwee-koos-ah-ool (Puntlege) and Me’łlun (K’ómoks)
The place-naming component of the project first engaged Andy Everson, First Nations Artist, K’ómoks Cultural Leader and Anthropologist, in 2017 to unearth the significance of the land upon which the CVAG plaza (and downtown core) has been constructed. Andy Everson, K’ómoks cultural leaders, and four Heads of House – Kerry Frank, Allan Mitchell, Ernie Hardy Senior, and Wedlidi Speck, recognized the role of the gallery plaza as a centre-point within the City’s cultural core, its status as a place of welcoming, gathering, and healing, and its significance within K’ómoks culture and unceded territory.
Two names were put forward by the Heads of House as place-names for the gallery plaza:
Qwee-koos-ah-ool (Puntlege) and Me’łlun (K’ómoks). Elder Wedlidi Speck notes that using the two names or words together suggests a unity between the two peoples. It is a way to honor both. The Comox Valley Art Gallery is honoured to have been gifted this name. It is seen as an opportunity to develop the CVAG plaza space as a ‘calm space’ in which differences can be valued, and in which diversity is fostered through public meeting and celebration.
TRADITIONAL WELCOME POLES
In 2018, Randy Frank and Karver Everson, under the mentorship and training of master carver Calvin Hunt, created and installed two Welcome Poles on the plaza of the Comox Valley Art Gallery in downtown Courtenay.
The poles are linked to The Guardian Pole Project an initiative of the K’ómoks Nation that will see the creation and installation of 20+poles over a ten year period. The poles identify the traditional K’ómoks Unceded territory, which spans the southern Great Bear Rainforest south to Denman and Hornby islands. In form and design, the poles signify the bounty of the land and stories, traditions and cultural practices of the K’ómoks people.
TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS GARDEN
The Traditional Indigenous Garden at CVAG Plaza was planned and constructed under the guidance of Elder Barb Whyte in 2020. Since then, Barb has guided ceremony, cultural teachings, and harvesting of the garden. In 2024, Barb met with city horticulturalist Tyler Johns and CVAG staff to consider what updates the garden needed. Changes have been made to accommodate the stresses of the urban environment on some of the original plantings.
I give thanks to the Creator, Creator of our planets and our stars. I honor Mother Earth for all that she gives us, the oceans, rivers, mountains, and plains. I give thanks to the trees and the plants for supporting the physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing of our elders, mothers and fathers, and our children that walk upon her with respect for ourselves and respect for Mother Earth and all of my relations.
– Barb Whyte
CROSSROADS
Situated outside the Comox Valley Art Gallery since 2020, this sculptural site installation by artist Andy Everson is part of the overarching plaza project. The work brings awareness to the traditional Bighouse architecture and the formline/fineline of the Kwakwaka’wakw and Coast Salish imagery and represents the historical and current significance of the region as a place of territorial, environmental and cultural intersections.
The components of the Public Place : Sacred Space plaza project began during CVAG’s 2018 convergent programs Touching Earth Bodies and In This Place, which also included the exhibitions Touching Earth Bodies, Nump Ma Noch Gyai Yoo Lahss (We All Come From One Root), and Honouring: Project Of Heart / Speaking To Memory and related events.
HONOURING: Project of Heart / Speaking to Memory – E-Publication