Public Artwork

New Currents, An Ancient Stream

Gwen Boyle, New Currents, An Ancient Stream, 1994. © Marc André Brouillette
Gwen Boyle, New Currents, An Ancient Stream, 1994. © Marc André Brouillette
Location:
Palisades Apartments, 1200 Alberni Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Artwork creator(s): 
Boyle, Gwen
Text author(s): 
Da Vinci, Leonardo
Collaborator(s): 
Green, Anita
Installation year: 
1994
Remarks on location: 

At the southwest corner of Bute and Alberni Streets; runs alongside the ground floor of the Palisades Apartments.

Description: 

A series of connecting high and low pools, with a waterfall made of overlapping black slate. A large glacial boulder sits in the upper pool and an identical cast bronze replica sits in the lower pool. Inscription cast in concrete beside the waterfall.

Text of the artwork: 

In rivers, the water you touch is the last of what has passed, and the first of that which comes; so with time present.

Text theme: 
Flow of time
Artwork theme: 
Symbolic reclamation of the past and recognition of change
History: 
The artwork took almost two years to complete.
Note(s): 

This work marks the site of one of 49 salmon rich streams that once flowed through Vancouver to the sea. Time is symbolized by an "erratic" - a boulder formed by magma and sea water - and its doppleganger cast in bronze.

 

Private development

 

Sponsoring organization: Westbank Projects (real estate developer)

 

Donor: Monterey Properties Ltd. / Pacific Palisades Hotel Ltd.

Propriétaire(s): 
City of Vancouver
Document(s): 

New current, an ancient stream: a water project at 1200 Alberni Street, Vancouver, BC

[Anonymous] (1997).  New current, an ancient stream: a water project at 1200 Alberni Street, Vancouver, BC. Artichoke. vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring) , p. 49