‘A memory of our combined belonging’: New bridge mural brings neighbours together in East Vancouver

An unsuspecting fixture of one East Vancouver neighbourhood has recently been transformed into a vibrant public art display. 

The Grandview-Woodland Bridge is now adorned with an enormous, 70-metre-long, 4-metre-wide mural, representing the culmination of months of work done by artists, organizers and neighbours alike. 

Allison Chow, lead artist and organizer for the mural (a project that currently has a few names, including “Cartographies of Connection” and “Community Marks”), said that when the painting day finally came, she was heartened by the massive volunteer turnout. 

“[We had] over 200 neighbourhood volunteers just for paint day… we ran out of brushes and rollers,” Chow told Vancity Lookout of the July 11 painting event. Chow added that she had lost count of the total number of people who were involved in creating the mural, but estimated it was “maybe 400” if she included all stages of the project. 

Despite the impressiveness of the mural’s size, the creation of the piece of art that now stretches across the bridge involved so much more than merely applying paint to pavement. 

The vision for the mural originally came from a similar project that Chow had been a part of called Emotion Cartography, where she worked with community members from different backgrounds on a project that explored creative ways to communicate experiences and emotions. “The main point [was imagining] how to create spaces where people from all sorts of backgrounds could come together and connect across lines of differences.”

For this mural project, Chow said that she wanted to explore how “we can use art marking as a methodology to gather information… where we can create and point out resources that people might be interested in, and form connections through [that process].”

Things first started moving in Dec. 2025 when Chow applied for funding through the City of Vancouver’s Community Street Art Opportunity, and received the full $15,000 for the project. 

When the city recommended the bridge site for the mural, Chow, a Burnaby resident, said she was happy to be able to do this project in Grandview-Woodland. “A lot of street enhancement projects happen in areas like the West End,” she said, “[But I got the sense that] not a lot of them are in East Vancouver.”

Over the following months, the project began to take shape through a series of workshops, community gatherings and a ton of input from neighbours. 

First, Chow and her two co-facilitators, Emily Huang and Carol Mac, spent months in the early spring reaching out to the community, planning workshops and promoting the project. They reached out to youth programs, seniors’ groups, the Grandview-Woodland Historical Society, the Vancouver Heritage Society, mental health and community arts organizations and local schools, all in an effort to capture as many voices as possible.

In early June, it was time to host their first of three workshops, where Chow and her co-facilitators created what she called “a sort of time machine activation.” 

At the first workshop, facilitators set up three stations where participants were invited to respond to prompts printed on cards that related to either the present, past or future of the community. 

Some of the questions included things like “Where did people in your family or community like to gather when you were growing up?” “Who in your community helps you feel a sense of belonging and how do they do that?” and “In the future, how could this neighbourhood better support people in finding community and connection?”

Participants responded through a range of media, from conversation to collage, photography to poetry, drawing and more. They shared stories of belonging tied to playing hockey, Commercial Drive’s role as a queer community safe haven, and even how the area's walkability has been “life-changing.” 

Rather than asking what felt missing or broken, Chow said, facilitators felt it was important for people to imagine what they would like to welcome more of into the neighbourhood, encouraging participants to focus on sensory parts of their experiences.

At the end, the team had 70 pieces of audio and more than 140 points of visual reflections that symbolically represented participants’ stories and experiences relating to the neighbourhood. 

One such story was from a man named Amer who moved to East Vancouver from Beirut. He created a “snowflake-style mandala” and shared a poem with the team, describing what it has been like for him to move from a place where he had experienced conflict and fear, to starting a new life in Vancouver. “He saw children in the neighbourhood that reminded him of growing up… and coming back to life and living life to the fullest,” a translator said, relaying Amer’s experience in one of the team’s recorded stories. 

After two days of the time machine workshop, Chow said the team hosted a seven-hour-long “community living room” gathering on the bridge, where participants viewed the art created during the time machine exercise in an informal “pop-up gallery.” 

“We had people come back and share with others what their reflections were, how they’ve evolved and what themes they saw and heard,” she said. Everyone was then invited to vote on what themes resonated with them the most. “That’s how we glued together all of these different symbols [and made it into] what the mural is now.” 

The mural itself incorporates a variety of images, each carrying deep meaning for the hundreds of people involved in the project. 

One of the images that made it onto the mural included a set of overlapping but separate bubbles, imagined by a woman named Sarah who reflected on the question “How has this neighbourhood changed since you’ve been here? And how has that changed where people gather?”

“She was sharing how many people come here from different cultures and backgrounds,” said Chow. “There’s a desire to be respectful, but sometimes that can create distance.” In the image, the bubbles are really fluid; they press together, but then suddenly a closeness forms. “It’s about how connection happens when people slowly and safely learn about one another and create a [safe] space where relationships can deepen.”

Many participants incorporated various nature motifs, including images of trees reaching together, inspired by one of the Squamish names for the Grandview-Woodland area, Khupkhahpay'ay, meaning cedar tree. 

“Trees form protection, and it's a home to shelter all,” Chow said. The middle of the mural, in particular, is really inspired by this sort of imagery. “In a sense, when we are well, we’re able to naturally protect vulnerable community members.” 

Crows were another popular image amongst participants, said Chow, due in large part to the “crow super highway” that cuts across Grandview-Woodland, where upwards of 10,000 crows migrate to Burnaby to roost each night. 

“I resonated with [the crow imagery] very deeply,” Chow said, laughing, “Sometimes when I was going to work and school, I felt like [the crows and I] were on the same commute.”

Other images like hearts, freight trains, the Skytrain, seeds, and seasons can all be found in the massive mural, capturing themes ranging from connection to rebirth to togetherness. 

There is, however, a challenge inherent in trying to succinctly summarize what the mural symbolizes, said Chow. Especially with so many individual stories captured within the piece, she cautioned, “when you zoom out, you can buff out too many details.” 

The feedback she has received from participants and community members so far has been overwhelmingly positive. 

Conversations with one participant, Christine from Metlakatla, a community of the Tsimshian people, inspired two line-drawn orca whales featured in the mural, in part as a representation of indigeneity, separation, reconnection and migration, as well as to honour her late brother. When the team asked for permission to add the orcas to the mural, Chow said that Christine agreed and told her, “every time I walk by [the mural], I’m going to feel like I belong here.” 

Another community member relayed to Chow that the bridge, in particular, is a potent site for a piece of artwork like this. “A lot of people come here… when the weight of the world feels like too much and contemplate ending it on this bridge,” said Chow, adding. “He said he felt like this is really going to help.” 

While Chow is cautious to claim that a mural has that kind of power, she said that throughout this process, “it really dawned on me, hearing from the neighbours that stayed with us through this project, how impactful it is to see ourselves reflected in public art in our neighbourhood… It’s a sign that we exist, a memory of our combined belonging.” 

For those who wish to take in the new mural, it will likely remain on the Grandview-Woodland Bridge for the foreseeable future. Because it is safe from the wear-and-tear of car tires, Chow said the city estimated it should last for at least the next seven years.  

Chow is currently working to establish plans with the Grandview-Woodland Council for a regular refresh of the mural. 

“Creating sites of encounter is really important… seeing that people in my neighbourhood did this and that people are capable of amazing things every day.” She added, “Something really remarkable happened [with this project], and I’m still trying to really understand it myself.”