Punjabi visual artist designs street signs for Komagata Maru Place

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Queer Punjabi visual artist Jag Nagra’s artwork was selected for the honorary street signage that went up at Canada Place last month. 

The new signs and secondary name for Canada Place were unveiled at a ceremony by Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and members of the South Asian Canadian community. 

After a city council decision in 2023 to recognize Vancouver’s role in the Komagata Maru incident, the signs were unveiled as a part of the cultural redress. 

The City of Vancouver reached out to Nagra to create the artwork for the secondary street signs after she was selected from a list of South Asian artists put together by curator Jas Lally. 

The two signs, located at the Burrard and Thurlow street intersections of Canada Place, were created by Nagra over the course of a month. 

The approach for creating the artwork was up to the artist’s discretion, Nagra says. She wanted to bring a human element to the signs, not just something text based. 

Nagra says the signs will act as educational pieces for Indian and non-Indian people who aren’t familiar with the history of Komagata Maru, and drawing the passengers present on the ship humanizes their story. 

The Komagata Maru was a steamship that arrived at the Burrard Inlet on May 23, 1914. There were 376 passengers on board from the Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim communities from mostly Punjab, India. The passengers on board were denied entry into Canada due to discriminatory and racist laws and were thus forced to return to India where 19 were shot and killed on arrival. 

“It ends up being not just a story from the past, it becomes like, ‘Oh, they were real people who suffered a lot during the whole ordeal,’” Nagra says. 

The drawings on the signs were based on archival photos of the passengers. The first sign illustrates Baba Gurdit Singh, who is considered a central figure in the Komagata Maru incident, alongside a young boy who was one of five children on the ship. The ship in the background, embellished in tones of dark red, symbolize the bloodshed that occurred during the incident. The setting sun in the background spills into the ocean, illustrated in a similar shade of red, further reflects the blood. 

The sign also illustrates 19 birds in the sky in shades of white to represent each passenger who lost their lives. Baba Gurdit Singh’s turban, illustrated in green, a colour associated with Islam, represents the Muslim passengers on board. His saffron coloured jacket represents the Hindu passengers while the navy blue at the bottom represents the Sikh passengers. 

“I couldn’t draw all 376 passengers, but I tried to incorporate as much storytelling as I could into the sign,” she says. 

The second sign illustrates 13 passengers on the ship with their eyes closed in mourning of the tragedy that occurred. Of the 376 passengers on the ship, only two were women, illustrated standing side by side. 

“I imagined on a ship full of men, these two women probably would have been leaning on each other for support,” Nagra says. 

At the bottom of both signs are the words “Guru Nanak Jahaz” in Punjabi, another name for the steamship. Since Canada has a huge South Asian population, Nagra wanted to include the Punjabi language in the signage to represent them. 

“I wanted to represent our people, not just in English, especially if the name is Guru Nanak Jahaz, I felt that should be written in Punjabi.”

Nagra says she wanted the community to gain appreciation for the suffering that took place during the incident and understand why it was wrong to prevent it from happening again.  

“I really wanted to make sure that the larger South Asian community, the Punjabi community here, felt proud of seeing our people there and made sure that I did justice to their suffering.” 

From each colour to every element, Nagra says she “put everything [she] had into the signs.”

When she found her artwork was selected, Nagra burst into tears and was proud of being able to represent the South-Asian community. 

She wants the signs to be a tool for people to learn about the tragedy and for people in the community to feel proud and represented. Whenever she creates a piece of art, her community is at the heart of it. She says it feels good to embrace her roots after hiding her identity and culture while growing up. 

“I’m happy that our community and what those passengers went through is being represented, and that we’re able to take up space in the city and say, ‘Our story matters.’”