If you have wandered down to Sp'akw'us Feather Park at Oceanfront Squamish in recent months and noticed a number of art installations, you may have had your curiosity piqued as to what exactly they are.
The Squamish Chief went on a walking tour of the five sculptures with visual artist, Maskull Lasserre, to get the lowdown on the public artwork.
“We wanted interactive and publicly accessible sculptures for the area—something other than building jeweller,y which public art sometimes tends to be,” Lasserre told The Squamish Chief.
“It’s an extraordinary site and it called for an extraordinary approach to populate it with a physical manifestation of culture and history.
“All of these pieces point out to the landscape, into the community and to the history and possible futures rather than being static destination pieces that talk about themselves.”
The collection of artworks is called “Lacuna,” which the Squamish-based artist describes as “a missing piece”.
“It’s the pause between words that meaning inhabits, the empty space that’s filled with whatever people bring to it,” he said.
“I look at these as illustrations for an unwritten fable or something.”
Gravity as Thief and Protector
Despite being laid out across the park to stumble across in any order, Lasserre said there is a specific orientation for the pieces.
When you first walk into the centre of the park you are immediately greeted with the sculpture titled “Gravity as Thief and Protector.”
The installation depicts a ladder reaching up towards the sky, resting on the moon. Several rungs on the ladder are missing and perched towards the top is a raven with one of the rungs in its talons.
“This was designed pre all the lampposts being installed here, so it used to be that when you drove down that road, there was just this moon hanging in the sky, but now you have to get past the lampposts before it has that same effect,” Lasserre said.
Made with bronze and stainless steel, Lasserre explains the missing ladder rungs act as a deterrent to “keep ambitious Squamish climbers” away from the top of the ladder.
He said the name of the park—Sp’akw’us Feather Park—inspired the ravens used across the installations and he has since learned of an Indigenous story that unintentionally ties the piece together.
“There is an Indigenous story about a raven stealing the stars from the sky. I didn’t know this until after the fact, but it’s a wonderful interpretation that found its way into the work,” Lasserre said.
“The raven here has a sister that is part of the final piece, which is a bit of a secret that if you really look will reveal itself to you.”
Memento Cipher
Three sculptures Lasserre refers to as “triptic or memento” which pay homage to the “industrial legacy” of the site.
Each made out of bronze material, the trio of work depicts an excavator bucket, a root wad with a stainless steel key entwined in the roots, and a bell with a stainless-steel salmon inside that has swallowed the knocker.
“People ask what they mean and what it’s all about and I guess the answer is in looking at the objects themselves. If it meant something that could fit into a sentence then it would be much easier just to write that down,” he said.
“But the point of making these things is that the meaning and the understanding converge into the physical and material world and not in words. They have to be experienced and touched and moved.”
All three of the sculptures are on bearings and are able to be spun around.
Lasserre says the installations can be spun around to a specific alignment which reveals where the keyhole is for the key.
“It’s a little riddle for people who choose to discover it,” he said.
Mother
It’s not every day you see a 3,600 kilogram( 8,000 pound) rock floating in the air, but this is exactly what Lasserre has created for his piece called “Mother.”
The first installation made for Lacuna portrays a pulley system where a massive rock is suspended in the air by a piece of rope. Visitors can stand on the other side of the pulley and hold onto the rope, giving the illusion they are lifting the boulder.
“Each one of these pieces is meant to make people just a little bit uncomfortable, there’s this expression of “falling awake” which is when you see something that you don’t usually see like this 8,000 pounds of granite hovering 10 inches above the ground,” Lasserre said.
“You’re not used to seeing big rocks like this off the ground. It’s just to share those kinds of moments to take expectations and turn them on their head a little bit.”
The artwork has been temporarily deactivated by the District of Squamish while they wait to install a sign urging visitors to “use at your own risk.”
Lasserre said this is due to “people swinging on the rope.”
“There are plans to put up a sign from my understanding,” he said.
Freedom as Hope over Distance and Spectre
The last installation is a collection of two artworks, one of which you might not even notice is there.
‘Freedom as Hope over Distance’ depicts a scale with a boulder on one side, and a locked bird cage on the other, both perfectly balanced.
“There’s this totally upended notion of balance and symmetry here, they’re kind of the same size, but totally different weights and they shouldn’t balance like that, so it either makes you think that the cage is much heavier or the rock is much lighter,” Lasserre said.
Inside the rock is a scope which you can look through to see the hidden second part of this installation, “Spectre.”
Turning the rock towards the right of the oceanfront, a raven can be spotted on a pole. In true artistic fashion, the raven can be spotted with a key in its mouth—the key to the cage balanced on the scale.
“There is something so solid and stationary, about 2,000 pounds of rock, you shouldn't be able to turn it,” he said.
“Putting the scope and the hanging rock together seemed like an experience I’d never had but one I would really like to have.”
Lasserre said he wanted to use the lock and key symbolism throughout Lacuna because it acts like a lure or prompt for visitors.
“It’s a very obvious combination of objects and finding one makes you look for the other,” he said.
“It’s that journey of looking for the lock or the key where life happens and that’s the Lacuna, the gap between these two things.”
All five artworks can be seen at Sp’akw’us Feather Park at the Oceanfront Squamish.
