The free event opened on January 22 and will run until February 17 at Maffeo Sutton Park. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

Maffeo Sutton Park in downtown Nanaimo has been lit up with several pieces of art celebrating light, land and community.

Marking 150 years since the first council meeting of the newly incorporated City of Nanaimo, the City is putting on temporary art projects around Maffeo Sutton Park.

Luminous Paths: Nanaimo’s 150 & Beyond, showcases seven different art pieces by five artists that use different elements of lights, sounds, and touch.

The free showcase opened on January 22 and will run until February 17. CHLY attended the opening event and spoke with Jaime-Brett Sine, cultural services coordinator about how the showcase can be together.

She said the art installations are used to illuminate dark spaces in the park for people to interact and engage in spaces of the park they may not normally be in in the dark.

“The art is going to be up for multiple weeks,” Sine said. “So the art will be available and accessible for people to come and to see and experience during different times of day for about three weeks.”

Luminous Paths is funded in part by the Government of Canada, through Canadian Heritage’s grant for Building Communities through Arts and Heritage. Sine said they only found out they received the funding in November 2024, giving them a tight turnaround time to get the showcase ready for January 22, the anniversary date for the first council meeting 150 years ago.

“So I initially was looking at what artists could feasibly pull off these projects within the timeline and also with what I'm asking for. I also went to the Urban Design Roster, a roster of artists that we already engaged in different projects,” she said. “And then I had a couple of proposals from artists for other opportunities that I thought, ‘well, they didn't end up getting selected for that opportunity, but I think we could translate that well into this opportunity instead.”

She said she took on a sort of curator role for this project, working with the artists on their pieces and finding the best spaces to have them displayed.

“You never want, you know, a piece just to be plotted down somewhere, because it's cool,” Sine said. “You really want to think about the space public art is going into, because it's meaningful in the space as it goes.”

bailey macabre is one of the participating artists, with their piece yahkikiw (they push forward in growth), an acrylic tree symbolizing growth, movement, and the complexity of identity.

“So that is a tree that's native to Vancouver Island. I feel like there's something to be said about the fact that it's made out of plastic,” macabre said. “We have a problem with, like, old growth logging. There's kind of this tension between the like fake and the real and that type of thing.”

macabre said that while the piece was originally supposed to be holographic, due to the deadline, it had to be made acrylic.

“But with the changing of the light colours and the kind of holographic nature of the tree, it's kind of speaking to like the intersections of identity, and how those type of things, like where you're from, who you are, and all the various areas of your identity kind of intersect in interesting ways and kind of create this like multifaceted, interesting, individual,” macabre said.

David Parfitt is one of the co-creators of Monkey C Interactive, an art group known for its whimsical and interactive art pieces. Two of Monkey C’s art pieces are featured during the event.

Candycombs is a pressure-sensitive floor that triggers lights and sounds, as well as Pythagorhythm, a multi-user music maker that makes more sounds and noises when more people touch it.

Parfitt told CHLY that the two pieces were already created for other past projects when the City of Nanaimo came to them about having their artwork in the showcase.

“Since these take quite a long time to develop, we couldn't develop new projects for this piece, but we've adapted them specifically for Nanaimo,” Parfitt said. “So they are from original pieces, or they're from pieces that we have had for a while, but we've made them especially for Nanaimo.”

He said it feels great seeing everyone interacting and engaging with their art pieces.

“I mean, that's kind of what motivates us anyway, is that we make– this one at the Pythagoras in particular–it doesn't make a lot of sense unless you collaborate with other people,” Parfitt said. “So it brings people together. Strangers will make music together and laugh and have a good time and that I mean for us to see is it's always fun. It just never gets old.”

Luminous Paths is on now until Family Day on February 17.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.