Profs sculpture now ‘Certified Cultural Property of Canada’

Grace Nickel, Point Pleasant Pilaster, 2007 (collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia). Installed at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia for Arm’s Length: The Northwest Arm and the Artist (image courtesy of the AGNS).

Grace Nickel created a piece of Canadian heritage. This is what creators do.

The professor in the School of Art sculpted Point Pleasant Pilaster in 2007 and in 2013 it was officially certified under Canada’s cultural properties program. The piece is now a part of the permanent collection at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax because it was deemed to have exceptional cultural significance to the Maritime province.

“The whole process takes a long time and there are no guarantees that the work will be seen as ‘of exceptional cultural significance.’ I’m honoured that it received this status and grateful to the excellent staff at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia for its support and diligence,” Nickel says.

As the Government of Canada states: “A certified cultural property is a property of outstanding significance and national importance to Canada, for which a certificate has been issued by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board.” The work must be five years or older before this can happen.

Point Pleasant Pilaster is now part of the Arm’s Length: the Northwest Arm and the Artist exhibit.  Nickel’s piece is included in this exhibition and, even though she lived in Halifax for only two years (2006 to 2008), her work has become part of its story. As Nickel says,  “the city’s resonance stays with me still, and Point Pleasant Park remains especially poignant and significant to me as a symbol of community and strength.”

Further Reading

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University of Manitoba alumni receive Governor General arts awards