West Kootenay sculptor Brent Bukowski can’t say much yet about his large-scale installation titled Burquitlam: Between and Beyond, a piece that will grace the foyer of the Evergreen Line station currently under construction.
The only things he’s allowed to revealed it that the artwork will be finished with found materials, incorporate environmental and historical themes and be installed sometime next year in the west Coquitlam SkyTrain station.
“This piece is about acknowledging the history of a community settled in the 1800s on a road well-travelled and the transformation of that neighbourhood now that it’s going to be connected by rapid transit, which is quite significant,” the artist told the Nelson Star this month.
Bukowski said the project has involved many agencies including TransLink, the provincial government and several municipalities.
That level of government bureaucracy alone was quite an eye-opener for the sculptor, he said.
His artwork will celebrate the move away from the automobile culture in booming metro regions. Coquitlam has adopted a strategy called transit-oriented development, which models the neighbourhood around vehicles such as buses and rapid transit that move people fast. That fits, in turn, in nicely with his environmental beliefs, he said.
For his Burquitlam installation, Bukowski worked with Nelsonite Don Willems of EffiStruc Consulting.
— Nelson Star
