Circle of Life: a StreetBond install at Langley Events Centre

At the Langley Events Centre, there is now a circular motif rendered into the forecourt surface, a design called "Circle of Life," developed by artists Nəq̔ ɑɬc̔ i (Drew Atkins) and Miməwqθelət (Elinor Atkins) of k'wy'i'y'e (Spring Salmon Studio).

We installed it in StreetBond. The install took our crew through the kind of coordination that defines this category of work: artist collaboration, civic approvals, and a finished surface that has to last at civic scale.

The brief

The artists were commissioned to create a permanent installation that would ground the arrival experience of the building in the cultural context of the land the centre is built on.

"Circle of Life" carries specific meaning within the artists' tradition. Circular motifs speak to continuity, ceremony, and interdependence. When those motifs are rendered into a ground surface at civic scale, the choice of product matters, because a circular motif in pavement coating is either going to hold its line for two decades or degrade in a way that compromises the symbolism.

StreetBond was specified for this install. It's a decorative coating system engineered for vehicular and heavy pedestrian traffic, with colour retention in the fifteen-plus year range for most palette choices under BC conditions.

Translating art onto pavement

When an artist provides a design for permanent installation in pavement, the design has to be re-drawn at install scale. Centre-lines for circular patterns have to be plotted onto the real surface. Colour boundaries have to be masked in a way that produces a crisp edge under a coating that self-levels as it cures.

We worked directly with the artists on colour specification. StreetBond colours come from a standard palette and from custom mixes: for this install, we mixed custom tones to match the artists' specification sheets exactly.

Before the final install, we ran test panels on-site. The artists reviewed the panels in natural daylight and confirmed the colour match. Only then did the full install proceed.

What the surface represents

A civic building that stands on unceded land has choices about how it acknowledges that fact. A plaque is one option. A land acknowledgement at events is another. Rendering an Indigenous artwork into the arriving surface of the building, the first thing every visitor walks across, is a third, and it is a choice that commits the institution to the acknowledgement in a way that paper doesn't.

Square One was privileged to be part of this install. The artists delivered the vision; the commission made the work possible. Our role was to translate that vision into a surface durable enough to carry the meaning forward at civic scale.

If your organization is planning a similar artist-led install, we work with First Nations artists, civic arts programs, and engineering teams across BC on installs of this category. Request a project conversation.