The Blue Cabin

Chief Janice George and Willard Buddy Joseph, weavers and culture-bearers from the Squamish Nation. 

Chepximiya Siyam Chief Janice George and her husband, Skwetsimeltxw Willard (Buddy) Joseph have reclaimed the Salish weaving tradition and taught others throughout the Salish speaking territory and beyond. Their work began in Squamish Territory, weaving the technical, spiritual and generational teachings together. Janice and Buddy integrate the Squamish teachings from their late Grandmother Kwitelut-t Lena Jacobs—an elder and knowledge keeper who was directly connected to pre-contact times, as well as those of other Squamish ancestors. Chief Janice George and Buddy Joseph along with Leslie Tepper, co-authored the 2017 book, Salish Blankets: Robes of Protection and Transformation, Symbols of Wealth. Janice is a hereditary chief, trained museum curator and educator. Janice also co-organized the First Canada Northwest Coast Weavers Gathering, with other Squamish Nation Weavers.

Ariane Xay Kuyaas’ is an artist who has studied and practiced ancestral style Haida weaving for most of her life, and comes from a long line of world-renowned Haida spruce root hat and basket weavers. Growing up at 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 great grandmother Florence Davidson in museum collections. She is inspired by the quality of design and functionality in ancestral woven pieces and adapts these practices by harvesting and processing her materials, spinning her own warp threads and often sewing the textiles by hand. Spruce root weaving is a challenging process, and Ariane weaves the materials attending to tension and spacing, using a Z twist and design placement, and with the intention to create the desired shape rather than using molds. 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. While in residence, Ariane will visit the collections of Museum of Vancouver, the Vancouver Maritime Museum and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC amongst others

Ariane has presented her work as part of the Identity, Representation & Resistance exhibition (2023) at Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle; at the Bringing to Life: Traditional Indigenous Art Practice in Museums roundtable as part of the SDING K’AWXANGS – Haida: Supernatural exhibition (2019) at the McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal, and at the Canadian Museum of History (2019). She received the mid-career Artist Scholarship award from the YVR Foundation in 2023, and her work was honoured as Best in Endangered Arts Division at Sealaska Heritage Institute’s eleventh biennial.

Carole Itter: is a Vancouver artist who works in performance, installations, and film. In 2023, she exhibited at SFU’s Downtown Gallery, and at the Belkin Gallery at UBC. Itter worked extensively with multi-disciplinary artist and musician Al Neil, the longtime resident of the original Blue Cabin, in Dollarton, B.C. In 2017, she received the Audain Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Emily Carr University in 2024. She is 85 and a half and still standing.

During her stay, Itter will be refitting the cabin with many of the original furnishings, works of art, and other objects. She is using as her template the iconic photograph by Stan Douglas, which was taken of the cabin interior in 2013. During her six-week residency, two days will include making a short film on the beach near the cabin. The eight-person cast and crew are all mid-career women filmmakers and photographers.

Simon Grefiel is a Waray-Waray speaker born and raised in Tacloban City, Philippines and currently lives on the unceded traditional territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. His work has been exhibited and screened at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Ground Floor Art Centre, the Libby Leshgold Gallery, Gallery TPW in Toronto, and grunt gallery.

Simon has already begun his residency from across the Pacific and has been working closely with queer Southeast Asian underground music communities, documenting their stories and practices, and exploring their cultural influence across islands and the Filipino diaspora. This project is rooted in Simon’s ongoing work around the concept of ‘Banua’ — encompassing the poetics of belonging, culture, village, customs, and also sometimes signifying heaven, placenta, sky, underworld, nation, and wild grass.