Local First Nations artist and activist Priscilla Omulo met with community leaders from Port Coquitlam at the local Kinsman Hall to help plan a cedar weaving arts project as part of a Culture Days.

While TCCTV produced coverage of the eventual community participation day as part of our ArtsConnect programming, we believe there is value in sharing some of the input that was contributed by community leaders at the planning meeting that occurred prior to the community participation day.

While they have asked not to be identified directly, they represent such organizations as Arts Focus, the Wonderous Tree Fellowship, and the Burke Mountain Naturalists. While the community participation day was an opportunity to build bridges between cultures, the underlying theme of the project was to construct a sculpture in recognition of the missing and murdered indigenous women in British Columbia.

While this is, of course, an issue across Canada, it has been of particular concern in British Columbia with the Highway of Tears, where over a dozen first nations women have been found murdered since 1970, and even more so here in Port Coquitlam where the Pickton Farm is located. While Pickton was only charged in the deaths of 26 individuals, and convicted for murdering 6, he claims to have murdered almost 50 women, most of whom were from First Nations Communities.

Much thought went into the planning of this project and it is interesting to note that every person who came out to participate in the cedar weaving component of the project chose to donate their woven cedar heart to the sculpture when given the option of taking it home.