Title

Crossroads

Artist

Hou, Julian Yi-Zhong

Date

2021

Medium

glass

Type

sculpture

Dimensions

271.78cm height x 266.7cm width

Owner

Solterra Group

Accession Number

N/A

Location

4482 Juneau Street, Burnaby B.C.

Category

Private Development Public Art

Collection

Public Art

Lat/Long

49.263428018767925,-123.00362771525178

View in Google Maps

http://www.google.com/maps?q=49.263428018767925,-123.00362771525178

Crossroads is a triptych of stained glass pictures that memorialize figures in the fashion popular during the time of the artist’s youth spent loitering around Lougheed Mall in the early 1990s. Resonating with the fashion of today, the work speaks to historical echoes and to the continued history of cultural diversity that marks Burnaby as unique within Canada. The triptych also depicts a movement from meditative incantation to dance to collaboration and collectivity. The presence of crows refers to the crow’s roost just a few minutes south of this site, to their collective consciousness, as well as to their symbolism as transformation. They mark this momentous time of political and spiritual change. Crossroads was made in studio over a period of a year, the production of which will help to form the foundation for a new stained glass guild. Julian Yi-Zhong Hou (b. 1980) is a multidisciplinary artist born in Edmonton, Alberta, Treaty 6 territory, and currently resides between Vernon, on the unceded land of the Syilx peoples of the Okanagan Nation, and Vancouver, on the unceded land of the Coast Salish peoples. His work centres around contemporary mystical subjects, consciousness, and pagan and divination ritual, practice, and research.