The process of learning if Coquitlam makes new Canadians - and newcomers to the city - feel at home is being translated into a new public art piece for the library.
Blake Williams' The Welcome Project started earlier this year with a series of workshops aimed a generating conversation about how easy it is to make a home here.
To help the workshop participants be more at ease, some 100 birdhouses were built by senior woodworkers at Dogwood and Glen Pine pavilions, and attendees were asked to bring photos and other materials to illustrate their journey to Coquitlam - and to a new culture.
And those images of diversity, integration and inclusion were glued into a collage on the birdhouses, a metaphor for migration. "The things that came up during those workshops didn't surprise me," Williams said. "They were enthused by the mix of people who were here because that's not something they typically see back in their country."
But participants also noted the language barriers and the difficulties of understanding nuances. As well, they spoke of their loss to family and tradition, and the fact their children were adapting better than they were to the Canadian way of life. Still, "in general, people felt Coquitlam was a welcoming place to live and it was easy to become part of the community. That's an encouraging thing," Williams said.
Williams cited a comment from a woman who said she liked to see Coquitlam children walk to school unafraid of their surroundings "and, to me, that summed up the project."
With the data, photos and video footage he gathered from those workshops, Williams created two giant birdhouses - each measuring 11.5' high - that will be installed in the Coquitlam Public Library's City Centre branch.
Those two birdhouses - titled Migration - will be clad in glass tiles that have photos and text infused in them and, on either side of the birdhouses, there will be spy holes that the public can peep inside to get a look at Williams' interpretation of migration.
Williams has also created an eBook to document the workshops and building the public art pieces in his studio; the eBook is due to be up on the library's website in January.
The total cost of The Welcome Project and Migration is $45,000, of which $35,000 came from grant from EmbraceBC, which promotes multiculturalism in the province.
Migration will be unveiled on Dec. 5 at 5 p.m. at the City Centre library branch (1169 Pinetree Way).
