Welcome to the first event at the MOV with artists in residence from the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency and FLEET Mobile Artist Studios!
Ariane Xay Kuyaas’ (Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency) and Caitlin Aleck Te-Awk-Tenaw (FLEET Mobile Artist Studios) will discuss their weaving practices—ranging from stories of gathering materials, techniques and the cultural significance of weaving for both the Haida and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) traditions that inform their work.
The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency is a mobile artist residency located on a floating platform at Heritage Harbour by the Vancouver Maritime Museum. The residency gives the artist a unique perspective on the city from the water.
Responding to the loss of arts and culture hubs across metro Vancouver, FLEET Mobile Artist Studios are mobile studios for working artists placed in temporary locations throughout the lower mainland.
Other Sights for Artists’ Projects is a collective of metro Vancouver-based artists that seeks to create a presence for art in spaces and sites that are accessible to a broad public, such as the built environment, communications technologies, the media, and the street. Other Sights, along with grunt gallery and C3, was one of the founding members of the Blue Cabin Cooperative, and additionally launched the FLEET Mobile Artist Studios project in collaboration with community partners.
Date: April 16, 2025
Time: 2:00pm-3:30pm
Location: Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Street
Tickets: RSVP, Pay What You Can
For general inquiries regarding this event, please contact the Programming Department here.
About the artist:
Spruce Root Basket, Ariane Xay Kuyaas', 2019
Ariane Xay Kuyaas’
Featured artist at the Blue Cabin Residency April 1-May 13, 2025
Ariane Xay Kuyaas’ has studied and practiced ancestral style Haida weaving for most of her life. She comes from a long line of world-renowned Haida spruce root hat and basket weavers. Growing up in Old Massett Village on Haida Gwaii (where she still lives), she was mentored by her aunt, Isabel Rorick, and has studied work by her great-great-grandmother, Isabella Edenshaw, and her great-grandmother, Florence Davidson in museum collections. Learning both spruce root and wool textile weaving has helped her create original pieces for chiefs, for community members who partake in cultural ceremonies, and for those who wear regalia for special occasions.
Matriarchs in the Making, Caitlin Aleck, Te-awk-tenaw, 2023
Caitlin Aleck, Te-awk-tenaw
Featured artist at the FLEET Mobile Residency on Granville Island March 31-April 28, 2025
Caitlin Aleck, Te-awk-tenaw, is a səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation) artist specializing in weaving and digital arts. Wool weaving awoke in Caitlin in 2018, and she now creates art for ceremony, teaching and reconciliation. With cedar weaving passed down through her patriarch side from Xwchíyò:m, and wool weaving passed down through her matriarch side, she has a strong connection to the artform. Her thoughtful and passion-driven work is heartfully tuned with a strong focus around culture, history and ancestral connection to the land. She understands that weaving can be translated from story into design elements, which is her way of sharing her ancestral knowledge for generations to come.