Calgary Municipal Land Corporation Unveils Kitao’wahsinnooni: What Sustains Us – A New Public Art Portrait Series Along RiverWalk by Calgary Artist Alex Kwong
Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) proudly announces the unveiling of Kitao’wahsinnooni:What Sustains Us, a powerful new portrait series by Calgary-based artist Alex Kwong, now installed along the Jack & Jean Leslie RiverWalk in East Village.
The installation is the latest addition to CMLC’s Art in the Public Realm program — an initiative rooted in the East Village Master Plan’s placemaking strategies. Since 2010, the program has brought permanent and temporary installations that are designed to surprise, delight, and foster meaningful connection for residents and visitors to East Village. More than a decade in, the Art in the Public Realm program remains a vital platform for artists to contribute to the neighbourhood’s evolving cultural identity.
The RiverWalk mural opportunity, one of the key initiatives of the Art in the Public Realm program, is designed to showcase local artists every three years, providing a temporary canvas on which artists can take risks, expand artistic boundaries, and tell a cohesive story across several walls and surfaces.
“One of the central goals of our RiverWalk Mural program is to create opportunities for Calgary-based artists to share their voices and connect meaningfully with public space,” says Emma Stevens, Director, Communications & External Relations at CMLC. “Projects like this show how local stories, expressed through public art, can transform our shared environment—creating an open-air gallery that invites reflection, discovery, and connection for all.”
Alex Kwong’s concept was selected by a volunteer community-based jury, and replaces Cassie Suche’s beloved work, Touch Traces, which was showcased along the bridge abutments from 2022-2025.
Kitao’wahsinnooni: What Sustains Us brings a deeply personal and community-rooted series of portraits to RiverWalk this summer. Through an extensive engagement process, Kwong connected with individuals who shared stories about their personal relationships to the Bow and Elbow Rivers. These conversations became the creative foundation for the work—shaping both its visual and conceptual direction.
One of the most profound influences on the series was a conversation with Blackfoot Elder, Rod Scout, who ultimately also became a subject of one of the murals. “Elder Rod shared so much history about the Blackfoot connection with the river—stories I had never heard before,” says Kwong. “He offered me the Blackfoot word Kitaó’wahsinnooni, which translates roughly to ‘what sustains us.’”
That phrase resonated deeply and became the guiding thread for the entire project. “People have a history with the river that goes back tens of thousands of years,” Kwong continues, “The river carries an energy that draws people to it—whether through cultural practice, wellness rituals, or the everyday memories formed along its banks. When Rod shared that word with me, it felt like the perfect alignment—I was in the right place, with the right people, in the right setting. Every conversation I had during this project felt meaningful, filled with synchronicity, and underlined by the same truth: that the river sustains us all in different ways.”
Six bridge abutments and structural surfaces along RiverWalk now feature artwork that reflects a visual narrative about heritage, healing, resilience, and community through the lived experience of everyday people whose lives are connected to the river. Alanna Bluebird, Elder Rod Scout, Jay Jones, Henri and Donna Boulanger with Dee, Parisa Radmanesh, and, symbolically, the residents of the Calgary Drop-In Centre contributed stories to inspire and inform the artwork.
Kitao’wahsinnooni: What Sustains Us will be featured along Jack & Jean Leslie RiverWalk for up to three years, offering a thoughtful and immersive artistic experience that invites Calgarians to engage more deeply with the natural and cultural history of the place they call home.
More information about the initiative and artwork can be found on the East Village website.
