How can artists collaborate with other creative disciplines?

Our Artist in Residence program is one of our experimental forays that arranges a new dialogue between disciplines: what happens when artists introduce us to different forms of creativity, while exposed to our world of architecture and design?

In the best instances, the project grows in previously unforeseen ways and we all come to see things a little differently than we would otherwise.

Scroll down to see some of the highlights, and get to know our artist alumni.

2023 Artist in Residence
Applications for 2023 are now closed. Thanks to all those who applied. Successful applicants will be contacted shortly.

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Marni Bowman

Play in Process

Lori Weidenhammer

A Bee-lightened Delightful Unburdening: From Arbutus to Gumweed

Lexi Pendzich

SKATE WORLD

Collin Elder

Transient Repositories: Site Visit

Alma Louise Visscher

Transient Repositories: all the things we held before

George Rahi

Transient Repositories: Part I

Breanna Barrington

Empty City: Time is a Rubber Band

Cara Guri

Empty City: Outside In

Shirley Wiebe

Topographies of Care

David Ellingsen

Empty City: Projections

Travis Skinner

Annabelle Choi

Cravings: Food for Thought

Julia Taffe

Roxanne Nesbitt

Alex Beim

Ola Volo

Urban Tales

Katherine Soucie

Cast ON, Cast OFF

Heather Myers

Solid Liquid Ether

Michael Rozen + Scott Sueme

Surroundings

Krista Jahnke

A Stable World That Will Last Forever

Julien Thomas

The Faraday Café

Marni Bowman

Play in Process

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Marni Bowman is a transdisciplinary designer whose materials-driven projects utilize wide-ranging research, tying in history, science, speculation, trends and more to propose new material systems. While the medium differs with each project, the overarching theme in her body of work proposes alternative models of co-existing with nature that ask the viewer to supplant disbelief with an amused optimism.

Marni is based in unceded Coast Salish territory (Vancouver). She holds a BSc. from the University of British Columbia, is a certified Cabinetmaker, and has a design practice under the name Franklin St. Studio. Upon receiving an Experimenta scholarship, Marni attended Elisava University in Barcelona, Spain, where she completed a MDes. in Design Through New Materials, her thesis project receiving Gold in the Professional Edition awards. Marni has taught at Elisava University, presented at Emily Carr University, and Guangzhou University, and has been published in Designboom, Western Living Magazine, and Plural Magazine.

Fluorescent blue, semi-transparent worm and orb-like materials sit within a petri dish on a dark surface under UV light.
A hand holds a fluorescent blue-green cube of ice under UV light, melted fluorescent droplets are seen on the dark surface below.
A ring of blue green is seen where two bubble domes meet a dark surface under UV light.

Artist Statement

Play is understood as a tool for development, with its presumed natural endpoint at adulthood. Negative socio-cultural attitudes frame adult play as frivolous and a deviation from productivity – the “opposite of work.” But play is an important state of mind where reality and imagination are combined in exploration of different ways of relating to the external world, and deserves space both personally and professionally to be pursued for enjoyment’s sake alone.

Material design itself is a playful practice, requiring the suspension of disbelief and functional objectives. It is removing expectations and exploring possibilities in order to imagine alternative systems. Guided by hcma’s given theme “Delightful Unburdening,” this material research project titled Play in Process uses the UV fluorescent properties of an urban tree as the foundation for wide-ranging material experimentation, which was based on simple scientific principles but guided by curiosity and amusement.

Within the leaves, seeds, and bark of the common horse chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) is a substance with an uncommon property. Called aesculin, this substance fluoresces blue upon exposure to ultraviolet light, eliciting surprise and delight from those who observe it. These reactions served as the driving state of mind for the project, which took extracted aesculin from locally-harvested horse chestnut branches, and integrated the ephemeral UV-fluorescent phenomenon into a variety material expressions such as foams, paints, bubbles, plastics, crystals, concrete and more. Considering that UV fluorescence has limited obvious utilitarian function removes assumptions of its application, and using amusement as the guide in the material design process encourages myriad – and often surprising – pathways of enquiry.

Whilst play may appear frivolous on the surface, it engages with novel ideas and risk-taking behaviour that would not be considered under other circumstances. Play connects us to the fleeting moments, to each other, to ourselves, and to the wider world, laying the mental mechanisms for future opportunities as yet to be discovered.

Lori Weidenhammer

A Bee-lightened Delightful Unburdening: From Arbutus to Gumweed

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Lori Weidenhammer, aka Madame Beespeaker is a Vancouver performance-based interdisciplinary artist and educator. She is a settler originally from Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan. Lori is the author of a best-selling book called Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide for Saving the Bees published by Douglas and McIntyre. For the past several years she has been appearing as the persona Madame Beespeaker, practising the tradition of “telling the bees”. As a food security volunteer, artist and activist she works with students of all ages on eating locally and gardening for pollinators. She uses many art forms in her art practise including garden designing, drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, cyanotypes, sculpture, photography, textiles, singing, culinary arts and installation. Lori is a board member of the Native Bee Society of British Columbia and a recipient of the Entomological Society of Canada’s Norman Criddle award for her work as an amateur naturalist.

An inverted colour image of a bee drinking from the centre of an Oregon gumplant blossom.
Lori's hand holding a cyanotype image of bleeding heart over a garden patch where the plant is growing.
The hcma Victoria team being led on a walking tour to learn about the season's bees.

Artist Statement

It started with bees and arbutus leaves, and ended with gumweed. My main body of artwork is inspired by all things bees and plants related to the life cycles of bees, whether for food or nesting or both. Being new to the Vancouver Island, I was able to spend quality time in the Garry Oak ecosystem, which is one of my favorite places to be with bees. And I reveled in it—from the earliest pussy willows harboring shivering bumble bee gynes and fragrant arbutus blossoms to the showy end of season bee plants: fireweed, hardhack, goldenrod and gumweed. I shared my explorations of island bee plants and bee with the hcma Victoria office with cyanotype workshops and bee walks.

The patterns left by leaf miners on arbutus leaves were intriguing to me, so I did the research and found they were created by the caterpillars of two different miniature moths. I began stitching these patterns in leaves I cut from silk organza as a form of meditation. Stitching grounds me and helps me deal with climate change anxiety. I started making a costume piece from the stitched leaves, which is a work in progress. I imagine a costume inspired by the arbutus leaf miners which I will wear while talking and singing about the leaf miners.

Stitching is more of a cold weather activity for me. Once the bee season really heats up, literally and figuratively, I switched to making cyanotypes I was given the chance to stay at the McLoughlin Gardens cottage by the Comox Valley Art Gallery. I really got into the zone and was able to do a deep dive into the cyanotype process with local native bee plants. I learned a lot about the medium and became very attuned to the plants that were blooming.

I was able to photograph bees all during this residency—from the wee bees in the camas in late May in Beacon hill park, to the cuckoo bees in the gumweed in Uplands in mid July. My favorite were the cliff nesting bees I found on the beach below Beacon Hill Park (Anthophora bomboides). I took photos of the bees and their unique chimney nests which I plan to print as negatives on acetate and then make cyanotypes of them to accompany the botanical cyanotypes.

The process of making cyanotypes is very addictive and cathartic—a delightful unburdening that I plan to share with more people as a legacy of this project. I feel it’s a good example of how art can deepen a connection to nature and create a memento mori that anchors that connection to a time and place. I tell people that becoming a better naturalist can make you a better gardener. I feel the same way about design—becoming more connected to nature can potentially make you a better designer.

Lexi Pendzich

SKATE WORLD

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Lexi Pendzich is a photographer, living and working in Edmonton. Her lens-based work focuses on documentary photography, daily life and portraiture. She’s inspired by the power of images that tell stories, personal narratives and capture moments that wouldn’t otherwise be documented. Her photographic works explore the lightness of adventure - scenes she's stepped into and placed in a creative capsule.

Lexi received her BA in Art History and Anthropology from the University of Alberta in 2008. She has shown work at The Gallery at CASA (Lethbridge, Alberta), 519 Gallery (Lethbridge, Alberta) and Publication Studio (Edmonton, Alberta). She produced a DIY publication My Dog in My Place, a book of photographs and poetry, and published AGENDA 2036, a publication that's an ode to planning for the future, with Publication Studio Edmonton. Lexi has donated work to art auctions including Schmoozy (Latitude 53) and Art Frenzy (Southern Alberta Art Gallery). Her most recent photography work is a visual narrative of women and LGBTQ+ skateboarders in the community.

Check out her residency site!

Fingerboards with scale ramp.
Fingerboard half pipe
Fingerboard with scale pipes and rails

Artist Statement

This artist residency involves exploring new territories with hcma through this year’s theme Delightful Unburdening.

SKATE WORLD

I discovered a way to delightfully unburden, and it’s through community connection through the world of skateboarding. For this residency, I designed and built a skatepark and skate obstacles that reflect upon skateboarders and explore how skate parks can keep transforming to become welcoming spaces for all identities, levels and abilities. I explored the question of how inclusive spaces can be built and bring communities together. There are design elements that are fun, playful, reflective and artful, and ultimately allow the viewer to look in and imagine themselves unburdening with community.

Exploring the world of skateboarding can start small. It did for me. Growing up, I didn’t see people who were like me at the local skatepark, so instead I drew self portraits of what I would look like as a real skater! And to truly start small, I bought my first Tech Deck/ fingerboard so I could start to imagine skating and have fun making up skate tricks on a 4 inch board. It wasn’t until 2020 that I got myself a skateboard and started to connect with the growing skateboard community in Alberta.

For this residency, I worked with the hcma Edmonton team to make their own custom graphic for their mini skateboards. For the skateboard community, the skateboards’ design and style are a key part of their core identity. Collaboratively with the hcma team in residency workshops, we used film cameras to make images that incorporated into the visual identity of the skate park and created handmade skate obstacles reflective on the design theme.

My artistic practice is in film photography and when I reflected on the idea of Delightful Unburdening, it’s the moments that I’m photographing flowers and greenery that I do this the most. As part of SKATE WORLD, photographs of flowers informed the park’s visual design. To make the design elements of the Tech Deck/fingerboard park, I started to think about how the image of a flower can influence the movement of a skateboarder throughout the space. And furthermore, how the petals and stem of a flower can be a visual guide throughout the skatepark to make it delightful to skate through.

Collin Elder

Transient Repositories: Site Visit

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Born in Banff, AB, based in Victoria, BC, I began oil painting while pursuing a career in ecological restoration, which, along with a degree in biology, has focused my work on how we relate to landscape and wilderness. Visiting and assembling moments in landscapes of British Columbia has inspired me to create works that encompass time and capture the experience of looking.

Oil painting on panel of green dandelion growing out of concrete.
Two oil paintings on panels of yellow weed and small green oak leaves, framed, on a brick wall.

Artist Statement

This residency involved looking at the persistence and importance of commonly overlooked and underappreciated weeds. I did this by studying these temporary visitors on hcma’s future building sites here in Victoria and portraying them in oil paint and graphite sketches. The veracity of human development here is matched by the persistence of plant’s return to the land during its temporary dereliction between buildings. The community persists over time but the individuals become site visitors, in a similar way that a ‘site visit’ is in the architect’s agenda. Acknowledging them provides an experience that can move us to the periphery and allow us to re-evaluate human/plant interactions. They are a constant reminder of nature’s persistence, but they also provide a role in food/pollination and urban beauty. They are, themselves, transient repositories, of seasonal food and habitat. All resulting paintings and sketches were oak-framed and hung in the office for a short time to emphasize the point of how transient and yet resilient they are. But having them up, I hope, made us appreciate and be slightly sympathetic to their plight as generally being unappreciated, despite being essential.

Alma Louise Visscher

Transient Repositories: all the things we held before

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Alma is a white settler living and working in amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty 6 Territory. She creates fabric-based installations, soft sculptures, and drawings that consider the material culture and the parameters of abstraction through a feminist lens. Her work has been shown throughout North America, Iceland, and Germany at the Sweet Lorraine Gallery (Brooklyn), Kimura Gallery (Alaska), and included in the 2020 Canadian Biennial of Fibre Art (Idea Exchange, Cambridge ON) as well as in Future Station, the 2015 Biennial of Alberta Art (Art Gallery of Alberta). She is a recipient of the 2020 Edmonton Artist Trust Award and is thankful for the support from Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Edmonton Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

As both artist, teacher, cultural worker, and friend, Alma has focused on creating more accessible art programs. She has worked with a wide variety of government agencies and non-profit organizations,  teaching classes and leading workshops at day programs, continuing care centres, and with employment and youth support services.  Currently, she is a Sessional Instructor at MacEwan University.

A naturally-dyed, yellow piece of fabric, with stamps of flowers floats gently in the wind, warmed by a sunny background of grasses and dandelions.
In hcma's Edmonton office, a patchwork curtain made up of various panels of naturally dyed squares hands from a curved rung, used to divide up the open concept space. The panels are in various shades of rust, turquoise, yellows, greens, greys, and purples.
Squares and rectangles of naturally dyed fabric in golden yellow and lavender hues rest on green grass.

Artist Statement

The theme/question that framed this residency was “Transient Repositories” or what is left in space after we leave and the marks we leave behind. Thinking through this question as I started the residency, I was struck by the poetic intangibility of this prompt as well as the questions it provoked to consider ethical and caring choices with our materials and practices and ways of working.

Working with the natural dye process was both the material and conceptual research of my residency. The result of this residency is an installation in the form of a curtain.  It is made of silk fabric hand-dyed through a variety of processes with plants that I gathered or grew. The primary process that I used when making this piece is a process called fermentation dyeing. With fermentation dyeing, the plant and fabric are placed in a glass jar or container for several weeks. As the pH shift, the microbes transform the plant material and binds the colour to the fabric. The plants and steps that I used should result in very permanent and lightfast dyes. However, the purple-red section is made from a non-lightfast or fugitive (meaning it will quickly fade) colourant called Anthocyanins, which are found typically in red/pink flowers.  I wanted to include some of this type of colour, to acknowledge that permanence and longevity isn’t the only benchmark; sometimes, it is also good that things shift and transform or fade away.

Combining this process of fermentation and dyeing, with the form of a functional curtain, I was curious to consider both how space and materials are transitory and transformative, and maybe how that can help us consider/reconsider how we work and make. The process of fermentation allows for things to change and transform even as they are maintained. The plants themselves feel like active collaborators in this process, as I wait and watch the colour shift slowly.

As I worked through these processes and plants, I often asked myself the question of whether I was using the materials and plants in the right way. What marks I am leaving behind in the processes that I am using, in the plants that I am collecting and harvesting?

For example, some of the plants that I used are invasive/regulated species, such as the Common Yellow Tansy. Common tansy is a perennial that was introduced by European settlers in the 1600s, it reproduces by both seed and short rhizomes (underground horizontal roots) which makes it challenging to eradicate. Tied into this seemingly simple plant, are the long-reaching and pervasive harmful effects of colonialism, the influence humans have on transforming the environment, and the insidious effects this all has on our ecosystems.  It is a similar story with many other materials that we use and create with.

George Rahi

Transient Repositories: Part I

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  • Residency Period

    February 2022 - June 2022

  • Location

    Vancouver, BC

  • Follow Artist

    https://georahi.com/

George Rahi (b 1987) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territories, Canada. He uses self-created and altered instruments as a method of exploring the intersections between acoustic and digital technologies, modes of listening, and spatial and architectural thinking. His work includes installations, composition, instrument making, solo & ensemble performance, and works for radio, theatre and public spaces. He holds an MFA from Simon Fraser University and is the recipient of the 2018 R. Murray Schafer Soundscape award and awards from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Recent presentations have included Artificial Sonification (Matera), SPEKTRUM (Berlin), Kunst-Station Sankt Peter (Cologne), Fusebox Festival (Austin), Vancouver New Music, and Regenerative Feedback Festival (Rotterdam). He has been an artist in residence at EMS in Stockholm (2019), Locus Sonus Research Group in Marseille (2021), and Lobe Spatial Sound Studio (2022).

Artist Statement

Drawing inspiration from the overlapping rhythms of urban life, this residency project explored the ways that buildings give shape to our surrounding soundscape and acoustic horizon. Research began in hcma’s Materials Library to examine the acoustic properties of various building materials such as metal, wood, stone, and composites.

Imagining the built environment as a quasi-instrument, kinetic percussion devices were then constructed to animate these materials through the creation of a sound installation. Attaching the percussion devices to the walls and surfaces of hcma’s building, rhythms were acoustically sounded from the materials themselves, exploring their variations in timbre, resonance, and spatial characteristics.

Instrumentalizing the building’s interior space, the project also treated the air flowing through ductwork as an energy source for a speculative pipe organ. Drawing parallels between HVAC systems and pipe organs, air was channelled from the duct work to activate various organ pipes. This speculative organ recalls the idea of architecture as “frozen music”, as coined by Friedrich von Schelling, and enacts a perceptual window into architecture’s sonic dimensions. The project uses large-scale installation as a way to invite close listening to our surroundings and gestures towards possible ways of designing spaces that are more holistic in their engagement with multiple kinds of sensory perceptions.

Breanna Barrington

Empty City: Time is a Rubber Band

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Breanna is a multimedia artist based in Amiskwaciy-Wâskahikan (Beaver Hills House) ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Edmonton, AB) on Treaty 6 territory. Their work has been exhibited at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Alberta Council for Ukrainian Arts and Mile Zero Dance.

Through painting, printmaking, performance and bricolage, Breanna arranges visual metaphors that explore the relationship between modern urbanity, and the not-so-distant past. Breanna’s work aims to invoke a whimsical awareness and an ethos of care around our shared environmental heritage.

By utilizing recycled matter from back alleys, the River Valley, and thrift stores, Breanna gives forgotten items a new poetic context. Through their careful arrangements, these materials are given a new life.

As the climate crisis advances and the need for eco-awareness grows, Breanna’s residency challenges the viewer to reorganize their relationship with garbage into something with value and historical potential.

Artist Statement

Within the world of this residency, I ventured to frame the idea of ‘Empty Cities’ through a collaborative visual-performative lens. Combining a series of fluxus-flavoured prompts for mindfully navigating the urban labyrinth of “Edmonton,” with a collection of crystal ball vignettes, crafted from debris collected throughout my wanderings.

Together, with hcma’s Edmonton office, I will use these recycled materials and our virtual discussions to create a series of PowerPoint zines. Throughout this practice I ask: how can a careful examination of the past help us create a livable future? How can contemplating deep-time influence the way we live out the impact of our lives? My greatest hope is that this level of awareness might inspire folks to consider the impacts of living large.

Cara Guri

Empty City: Outside In

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Cara is a visual artist based in Vancouver, B.C. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and in New York, most recently at the Reach Gallery Museum and the Burrard Arts Foundation.

Through her painting practice, Cara explores the relationship between identity construction and portraiture. Her work examines the transactional nature of portraiture: information that is given to the viewer and that which is withheld.

Through her paintings, she re-examines conventions and symbols found in historical portraiture by translating them into her current reality, in a way that disrupts their original intent.

Artist Statement

Exploring the theme of ‘Empty Cities’ I will be using print outs of paintings from the canon of Western art history that depict images of people in the city to create a series of still life arrangements. I will cut out the represented figures from their environment, play with folding, crumpling, layering and activating the negative space left by their absence.

Objects and aspects of my own environment will be allowed to enter and transform the composition. This still life we will become the reference material for a subsequent painting and the result will be both literal and surreal.

The purpose of this project is to consider and play with the perceived stability of iconic structures and aesthetics and to explore how meaning is not fixed, but instead constantly evolving based on how an object is encountered and what one chooses to see.

For more information, and a behind-the-scenes of Cara’s residency click here.

Shirley Wiebe

Topographies of Care

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Shirley Wiebe is a self-taught interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver BC. Her installation and sculptural work explores relationships between physical geography and the built environment.

Shirley’s projects develop through investigation of materials, history and place. Substances are teased apart and re-imagined: corrugated plastic, mesh screening, industrial fragments and discarded objects undergo permutations that both utilize and deviate from their intended purpose. Hundreds of hand engraved wooden medallions woven into a massive ‘cozy’ to cover a severed tree trunk; a collection of interlinked piano keys whose form adapts uniquely to site; a series of stuffed amorphous shapes made from landscape cloth that suggest anthropomorphic resignation as they slowly biodegrade in the abandoned bear pit at Stanley Park Zoo.

Shirley has created site-specific installations in public art galleries and sculpture parks throughout the Pacific Northwest and participated in various international art residencies. She has been invited to collaborate with communities, groups and organizations and she, in turn, invites them to improvise with her.

Her work with hcma is a special project to create a new mural in each of our offices that reflects our body of work, people, and processes.

Artist Statement

hcma asked me the following questions in looking to develop three distinct 2D works that will act as a daily reminder of their responsibilities to their communities and the larger world: What does hcma represent? What can unite and bring communities together? My residency seeks to explore the common threads that can unite offices and the communities they serve.

 

David Ellingsen

Empty City: Projections

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David Ellingsen is a Canadian photographer who creates images that speak to the relationship between humans and the natural world. He focuses on themes of climate, deforestation, and biodiversity loss while drawing upon relationship to place.

Intersections form the foundation of Ellingsen’s practice – intersections of observer and participant, documentary photography and contemporary art, archivist and surrealist. He utilizes a wide range of technical means across the projects, motivated by the evolution of the tools of this restless medium. Ellingsen’s photographs are exhibited internationally and are part of the permanent collections of the Chinese Museum of Photography, South Korea's Datz Museum of Art and Canada's Beaty Biodiversity Museum, and Royal British Columbia Museum. They have been shortlisted for Photolucida's Critical Mass Book Award, appeared with National Geographic, and awarded First Place at the Prix de la Photographie Paris and the International Photography Awards.

With a practice formed by the landscape he grew up in, Ellingsen lives and works in the Pacific Northwest, moving between his home in Victoria and the island of Cortes, where he was raised, 150 miles to the north. Since arriving as that island’s first immigrant settlers in 1887, his family has continued residence on these traditional, unceded territories of the Klahoose, Tla’amin and Homalco First Nations.

Artist Statement

This interpretation of Empty City revolves around native plants and animals found in and around Greater Victoria.

The South Island’s human population is projected to increase by 22% or nearly 90,000 inhabitants by 2038, according to the latest projections by BC Statistics. With recent articles proclaiming British Columbia’s “looming extinction crisis” (over 1,300 species in BC are currently at risk of extinction), my intention is to make work highlighting this issue by pairing photographic and text-based work with evening light projections at various locations around the city.

Aside from the awareness-raising projections themselves, and their associated media reach, the final result will be 4 prints of the installations for the hcma Victoria office.

To find out more about David’s residency click here.

Travis Skinner

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Travis Skinner is a metal and wood artist with a keen interest in architecturally related sculpture.

A lifelong student of art, history, and philosophy, his artwork invokes all three subjects to connect with a folkloric knowledge of previous generations.

Using only a few hand tools, Travis’ residency will focus on the process of taking a log and transforming it into a finished sculpture. No hardware stores, no middle men. Just his hands, axes, and a tree.

During his first workshop, Travis introduced the idea that a beautiful process will produce beautiful results. He challenged us to think about how that applies to our own creative processes within the office.

Artist Statement

The concept of social justice evokes the balance of resources for a healthy and hearty society. I believe craft, and the general act of creation, is a stimulus toward finding the true meaning of beauty. Through a connection with each media, we gain a relationship that can guide a process of design that accentuates the virtues of the media.

The bowl represents a vessel for resource allocation. It’s an ancient human form that has a myriad of manifestations over time, representative of the cultural identity that shaped them. It’s through connecting with the processes of these ancient cultures that we can gain new perspectives on resource allocation to use materials in the most prudent and beautiful ways.

My collaboration with hcma allowed for a creative relationship that conceptually directed the project. The doorway carved into the inner sphere of the bowl is representative of a pathway for communication and connection with which that which fulfils us.

Though fulfilment is always changing, a community of people can help each other reach for social justice in the activities of our daily lives, and the lives of those around us.

Annabelle Choi

Cravings: Food for Thought

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Annabelle Choi is a chef, teacher, and facilitator, interested in food's ability to cross boundaries and connect people from all walks of life.

Throughout her career, Annabelle has collaborated with creatives, including design firms Firebelly Design and Here There Studio, publications such as Kinfolk Magazine, and the charity ArtStarts. She also teaches workshops on sourdough and fermenting through her eponymous studio.

For her residency at hcma, Annabelle is exploring how space can change our experiences of food, as well as how our cultural narratives can dictate our understanding of one another. The goal is to better understand how we engage and connect with our neighbours - as well as nature - through our senses and shared stories around food.

The project involves workshops on the techniques and science behind fermentation, spices, cravings and nostalgia, and the impact of our gut on our mental health. With food and community as a means for exploration, Annabelle will be creating challenging, sensory-specific experiences that question our understanding of society and space.

Artist Statement

My residency started with the intention of creating deliciously challenging, sensory-specific, and curiosity-invoking experiences that would question our attachments to food.

Through workshops with hcma staff, we explored how food forms part of our identity, and how it relates to creative practice. But, what emerged was something far more accessible and fundamental.

Tapping into childhood memories — and moments of discovery or hardship — we explored how specific foods and environments triggered different emotions. Through this, I discovered an ever-evolving dictionary of food memories that we all carry, like nostalgia, family, loss, and connection — a collection of experiences formed over a lifetime of using our senses to determine our perception of the world.

Through our own distinct ways of eating, whether by habit or ritual, we either add to our food memory dictionary, evolving and challenging it, or become rooted in our ways. By reflecting on these experiences together, we can better understand issues like addiction, cultural expression, and food security.

Julia Taffe

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  • Residency Period

    January 2018 - December 2018

  • Location

    Vancouver

  • Follow Artist

    https://aeriosa.com/

Julia Taffe combines art, environment, and adventure to create unexpected aerial dance experiences. As a choreographer and the Artistic Director of Aeriosa Dance Society, Julia creates performances that meld art, innovation and thoughtful risk management to shift perspectives of natural and built landscapes.

The Aeriosa team dances in public space, exploring urban settings and existing ecosystems with curiosity, care and respect; transforming neighbourhoods into theatres, and exploring wild environments as dramatic stages for live dance.

Julia has choreographed over 25 works on location including Stawamus Chief Mountain in Squamish BC, Taipei City Hall, Cirque du Soleil Headquarters, Vancouver Library Square, Banff Centre, Scotiabank Dance Centre and Toronto’s 58-storey L Tower.

During her year-long residency at hcma, Julia explored how to activate various unloved and underused sites in Vancouver. Together, we used dance to challenge what's possible for architecture—identifying both natural and urban spaces for performances which could be used for the Vancouver's first International Dance Summit.

Julia's residency culminated in a brochure design project with our architectural and communications design teams. Read the case study, or check out the Instagram story.

Roxanne Nesbitt

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Roxanne Nesbitt is a designer, musician and sound artist based in Vancouver, Canada. She is interested in the convergence of sound, design, and motion.

As an artist, Roxanne has worked with choreographers, drummers, architects, designers and other creatives. These collaborations explore everything from the design of large-scale spatial instruments to original percussion instruments that facilitate an unorthodox vocabulary of movement. With a Masters of Architecture from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Alberta, Roxanne has the potential to spark our curiosity and influence our practice in new and unique ways.

During her residency at hcma, Roxanne refined one of her acoustic pieces for public installation. Titled 'Minor 6th', the piece applies principles from musical instrument design to architectural interventions to make music-like sounds from the pedestrian step. A version of 'Minor 6th' has been shown at GlogauAIR in Berlin but this will be the first time it has been shared with the public.

Through collaboration with our staff, Roxanne tested the piece (currently in our studio) and hopes to find an appropriate location for its public installation. Collectively we explored the intersection between music and architecture, asking questions about the tonality of everyday materials and seeing how the sounds of everyday objects, spaces and bodies shape our experience.

Minor 6th was unveiled at our Vancouver studio in early October 2018, during the event we were lucky enough to see contemporary dancer Rianne Svelnis perform on the piece. If you would like to visit Roxanne's work please get in touch with us at office@hcma.ca.

Alex Beim

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Alex Beim is the founder and Creative Director of Tangible Interaction, a Vancouver-based studio that creates sensory installations where community participation is key.

Tangible Interaction delivers graphic, industrial and audio design as well as programming, electronics engineering and production. While their medium may be different, the work of Alex and his team aligns with hcma’s ambitions—to engage the community through shared experiences.

Their past work includes branded interactive experiences for companies across the world and collaborations with Blue Man Group, Arcade Fire, Green Day, Coldplay and Chemical Brothers. They also create public artworks such as CODE Live (2010 Winter Olympic Games), City of Turin, the Vancouver Aquarium, Siggraph, Cine Kid and Illuminate Yaletown, to name a few.

Alex’s final residency piece, titled Jax, generates an imaginative engagement not seen in most urban installations. Jax is a collection of two-metre high, inflatable, complex geometric shapes which can be illuminated from within. The Jax shape was the result of weeks of dialogue, collaboration, and a creative workshop with hcma staff. The shape was originally inspired by Dolos (and the related Kolos), which are large, concrete, interlocking structures that protect coastal seawalls, breakwaters, and harbours from the erosive force of ocean waves. The installation name comes from the final shape’s similarity to “Jacks”, a game that has been played in varying forms for generations.

In contrast to the environments in which they are discovered, Jax can turn any public space into a vibrant, active play zone. We hope that passersby will experience a temporary disarmament when they are put in touch with the delight of discovery and given the opportunity to collaborate with strangers. Like their progenitors, Jax also offer an element of protection from the erosive forces of modern urban life to those who engage.

Like our More Awesome Now laneway transformations Alley-Oop and Ackery's Alley, Jax propose an open-ended game, an urban improvisation poised to be as surprising to those who choose to play as it will be to those who choose to watch, turning all into participants within this urban-scale theatre of sorts. What do these forms look like all bunched up against the wall? What happens if we distribute them out over this entire area? What if they are bunched together in a nest? A time-lapse camera will capture the process, and might even yield some intelligence about how people congregate in the urban commons, which conditions host the greatest intensities, which the least.

Follow Tangible Interaction and hcma to keep up to date with our progress. We’ll let you know when and where you can find Jax when production is complete.

Images by hcma, Jared Korb and Mark Teasdale.

Design Process

Ola Volo

Urban Tales

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"It was a pleasure to do an art residency for TILT at hcma. I've had an incredible insight on the world of architecture and the beautiful people behind the craft"

Ola Volo_HCMA_AIR
Ola Volo_HCMA

Artist Statement

Ola Volo, is a Canadian illustrator from Kazakhstan with a distinctive style drawn from history, multiculturalism and folklore.

“My piece, titled ‘Urban Tales’, is filled with the different things I learned and stories I heard during my residency. Throughout this experience, I started to look at buildings differently; they became characters with personalities to me and so I illustrated them this way.

I wanted to represent and celebrate both the female and male perspective because hcma has an almost equal gender split. Other concepts that influenced my work were the notion of designing buildings for a future that is unknown, my realization that buildings exist because of the people that inhabit them, and the reality that nature and the elements also have an influence on a building’s design.

I originally intended for the piece to be architectural, strict and typographic but as my concept developed it became more fluid. There is a lot of storytelling in architecture and I wanted to capture the organic way people move around buildings. My biggest takeaway from the residency has been the development of my work in a 3D architectural space. The piece gradually expanded across the studio walls, becoming an installation piece and much more than a 2D mural. I love the way it wraps around the TILT Gallery, covering every side and angle, pulling the viewer deeper into the story.”

Community Impact

Ola Volo – hcma Artist in Residence

Canadian illustrator and painter Ola Volo spent a few weeks with our team in Vancouver and Victoria investigating our perspectives, processes, and personalities. This painting is the result of that experience, and the first time Volo had broken the flat two-dimensional surface to explore space as her art flowed up onto the ceiling and around corners.

Ola Volo – hcma Artist in Residence 

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Katherine Soucie

Cast ON, Cast OFF

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“Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.” (or knit)

-Walter Benjamin

Cast ON, Cast OFF is an in-progress installation informed by the structural application of knitting, the creative use/reuse of pre-consumer waste hosiery (cast offs from textile manufacturing process) and the valuable role that textiles serves each and every day in our environment.

DRAFT_Katherine Soucie_HCMA_Cast ON, Cast OFF
Katherine Soucie_HCMA_Cast ON, Cast OFF
Katherine Soucie_HCMA_Cast ON, Cast OFF

Artist Statement

Knitting is a method of textile construction that pre dates weaving and is composed of one continuous length of yarn or string. It is a transformative act that led me to embark upon a journey in 2002 that began as research into transforming knitted pre-consumer waste textiles, specifically waste hosiery (aka pantyhose) into new textiles for clothing.

As a material, hosiery embodies a unique construction, history and end use. However, since 1938, it has been manufactured as a petroleum by-product and designed to be disposable which it is not. The inherent design flaws of this material (running, pilling) in connection with its end use/life cycle continues to inspire and influence my ongoing research. It invites new discoveries with tools (obsolete and new technology) and allows me to expand upon form, structure and application in ways I never imagined. New pathways have come to establish itself into my creative process which inevitably grants me with the honour to act as an interpreter of this material by being able to tell its story.

Katherine-Soucie-CastONCastOFF
Katherine-Soucie-CastONCastOFF
Katherine Soucie_HCMA_Cast ON, Cast OFF

AIR Discoveries

Cast ON, Cast OFF is a distillation of what I experienced as part of my residency at hcma. The various conversations, travels (US + Western Australia), failure (trial and error) I experienced led me down a new pathway into I approach the use/reuse of waste materials I physically produce in the studio and how this can be transformed into a yarn and applied to the knitting process using craft applications to create 3D forms and environments. I look forward to seeing the finished installation in hcma’s Vancouver studio.

Community Impact

Cast ON, Cast OFF

Zero-waste textile artist Katherine Soucie spent three months hand knitting 15,000 inches of hand-dyed hosiery waste material to create “Cast ON, Cast OFF”. Weighing 50lbs and over six feet tall, her piece explores the relationship between architecture and textiles and the valuable role textiles serve in our environment.

Cast ON, Cast OFF 

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Heather Myers

Solid Liquid Ether

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Through the creation of a dance work, I hope to contextualize the space in a way that is meaningful to the community as well as to an architect. I am interested in integrating the quality of the building’s roof and other structures into my choreography and composition, drawing attention to the spaces that have particular potential for community interaction, and calling on qualities and issues associated with water for inspiration. Directing these concepts through the architecture of the space is the main line of the project.

The choreographed dance within the Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre expresses the nature of water, the idea of community, social relevance, space usage and perception, and the question of how these considerations are connected.

Artist Statement

My name is Heather Myers and I am a Vancouver based choreographer working in a variety of contexts.

My hcma residency and project delved into the intersection of dance, architecture and, ultimately, film through the creation of a site specific dance work/dance film inspired by The Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre.

I think that both myself and hcma were interested in how the forms of architecture and dance could inform and enrich each other through the creative process and discussion. Additionally, community was a particular consideration for the very public space that we were working with and so I wanted to keep in mind the idea of re-contextualizing or enhancing the space and architectural ideas for the public that will be inhabiting the space.

The nature of the project immediately called to my interest in exploring unconventional formats of presenting dance work as well as collaborating with a variety of art forms. Particularly, the call for the work to specifically address architecture was an opportunity for me to approach my craft in an unusual way. The focus that I put on transcribing and interpreting architectural forms opened up a very particular but also bountiful source for movement inspiration which I can now apply to a variety of creative challenges in my work.

hcma cultivates a very open and welcoming atmosphere for artists to work in close proximity to a form that they might not normally interact with. I feel that the opportunity for an artist to interact creatively with the spaces we inhabit as well as the designers of those spaces gives greater value and meaning to both practices.

Finished Piece

Solid Liquid Ether

Watch the choreographed dance in full.

Behind the scenes

Learn more about the making of Solid Liquid Ether.

Solid Liquid Ether 

Behind the scenes 

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Michael Rozen + Scott Sueme

Surroundings

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How can we push the boundaries of our practice in this new space?

When the hcma studio moved into its current location in the heart of Vancouver, we sought a memorable first installation for our new rotating lobby gallery.

By inviting the artists to create their piece directly onto our lobby walls with the knowledge that it would one day be painted over, we invited the creative process to take place directly inside our studio walls.

 

Surroundings_HCMA Air

Artist Statement

Michael Rozen is a Vancouver-born artist, coming from a graffiti background he now works predominately in various paint mediums on canvas and board. His work reflects experimentation in several genres including, abstract, expressionism, impressionism, among others. 

Scott Sueme is a Canadian artist raised in Vancouver, BC. Since attending Emily Carr in 2006, Sueme has been working as a graphic artist and painter.

Working with ‘Connections’ as a key concept, the design features a colourful set of interlocking and connecting shapes. The geometry is designed to lead the eye from one object to the next, illustrating their connection to each other and as a whole. With that as a focus, the shapes attribute this quality without a linear pattern, or repetition of a specific shape – they are meant to feel organic with a hand painted quality.

‘Connections’ walks the line between graffiti and modern art, featuring two areas of interest with texture cropped within large shapes. One represents a street and city space using weathering and graffiti painting techniques, the other represents a green space and features full foliage and leaves captured from trees around the Vancouver area. This piece pays a tribute to the landscape of Vancouver and our connection with nature as city dwellers.

AIR Discoveries

Following the success of ‘Surroundings’, Rozen and Sueme were invited by hcma client Royal Bay Secondary School to contribute another painting inspired by the architecture. The mural, titled Foundation, is a terrific example of enhancing a built environment through the combination of art and design and was completed before the school opened in September 2015.

Design Process

Artists' Process

Surroundings Timelapse

Painted directly onto the walls of our Vancouver studio gallery space, this installation created a sense of excitement within the office as we got to experience the artists at work.

Amanda Leier, Marketing + Communications Manager

Surroundings Timelapse 

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Krista Jahnke

A Stable World That Will Last Forever

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It is the designer who must attempt to re-evaluate his role in the nightmare he helped to conceive, to retread the historical process which inverted the hopes of the modern movement.

- Toraldo di Francia, Superstudio

A Stable World That Will Last Forever is a constructed portrait of Vancouver by Krista Jahnke, in collaboration with hcma, displayed at the Olympic Village Station from January to April 2015. The composition uses recognizable Vancouver landmarks organized into a new configuration, which allows the viewer to imagine our city within a new landscape and context.

Artist Statement

Krista Jahnke received her BFA in Photography from Emily Carr University in 2009 and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from Ottawa’s Carleton University in 2007. Jahnke’s work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and public spaces. In 2009 Jahnke’s series Same Soup Different Flavour: 100 Pairs of Converse Shoes was part of a year-long exhibition at Vancouver’s Burrard SkyTrain Station and is now part of the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation Permanent Collection. Currently, Jahnke’s photography series Drive In is installed at Main Street SkyTrain Station until spring/summer 2015. Additionally, Jahnke’s architectural photography was incorporated into the 2012 documentary Coast Modern and was included in the group exhibition Photography and the West Coast Modern House at the Charles H. Scott Gallery.

The piece is inspired by the languages of propaganda and graphic art favoured by the Italian Superstudio from the 1960s. Rather than casually viewing architecture as a benevolent force, the members of Superstudio blamed it for having aggravated the world’s social and environmental problems, while being equally pessimistic about politics. The group’s once radical theories about architecture’s environmental impact, the potentially negative consequences of technology, and the inability of politics to untangle complex social problems are now considered to be core concerns by self-aware, contemporary architects and designers. The piece examines the relationship between environment, architecture and society in the modern city and addresses the complex role of their interconnectivity and dependency.

Location

AIR Discoveries

By rearranging line, space and forms that communicate the power of architecture within the environment and how people interact with both, the piece invited viewers to envision Vancouver from a different perspective.

Community Impact

A Stable World That Will Last Forever

Experience the artwork through a video taken on site.

A Stable World That Will Last Forever 

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Julien Thomas

The Faraday Café

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In a space devoid of cell phone or data connections, will personal connections be formed instead?

Our first Artist in Residence, Julien Thomas, set out to answer that question with hcma and "The Faraday Café" – the only coffee shop in Vancouver designed to repel wireless signals.

Artist Statement

Julien Thomas is a social artist. He creates community gathering spaces, urban interventions and public installations. Originally from Vancouver, Julien now practices in Amsterdam where his work continues to challenge and engage people to interact with one another and form connections.

Before collaborating with hcma, I was primarily active in public space. My practice involved identifying relevant local issues, conducting research on policies, and developing approaches to reconfigure the public domain. I’m always interested in generating discussion, relationship-building and working towards stronger policy awareness and a stronger social fabric.

With the help of hcma, my practice was able to flex into a more private form that carried even greater opportunities for impact.

 

Location

AIR Discoveries

A collaborative design process between Julien and hcma yielded a pop up café completely enclosed in a mesh structure. The mesh shielded electromagnetic signals and created visual interest for the space and the project.

Located in the Chinatown Experiment at 434 Columbia Street, the Faraday Café was open to the public from July 2 to 16, 2014. To attract the public to experience this urban intervention, Julien served a rotation of artisanal coffees and hosted a variety of events including morning meditation workshops, afternoon DJ sets, and evening storytelling gatherings, all by donation.

So what happened?

People came. They talked. They drew. They wrote. Some people came to watch and see what other people did. The Globe and Mail sent a reporter and the story of the signal-blocking café made its way around the world, with news agencies calling hcma and Julien to ask “what happened”.

HCMA_AIR_TILT_Faraday_Cafe_Coffee_Cups2_300

Some of HCMA’s Discoveries

No one foresaw the interest this project would garner, or its potential for striking global connections. The project also sparked unforeseeable connections in our studio as it was being designed, and in the café between strangers who didn’t have devices to hide behind. Here are some observations from our team:

“Yes, the café definitely connected people. I think it was a combination of the disconnect from their phones and the setup, which was one long table with benches. People would talk with other people about how they found the place and why they were there. We noticed that the younger people definitely had more problems being disconnected from their phone than older people. We even observed some people going outside the cage/café for a ‘phone break’, as people would for a smoke break!”

The project also brought to light a previously hidden community of people with electromagnetic sensitivities.

Julien says, “The café was set up with the idea that it would attract people that wanted to truly connect. And some people came to explore that. But the café quickly started attracting A LOT of people that were very sensitive to electromagnetic fields, there’s a whole community out there and they were spreading the word through blogs. They ended up being the prime visitors.  A community none of us even knew existed, found the café and made it home. I think that is a pretty great story.”

Some of Julien’s Discoveries

“With “The Faraday Café ” I worked within the built environment, in a private domain. Interestingly this allowed me to focus on a topic with a much broader audience. It’s funny how working in private space can allow someone to go public in a much bigger way.

I’d also say this project enabled me to explore opportunities for combining creative practice with social entrepreneurship. The format of a café allowed people to place a simple economic value on the project. In current funding structures for Canadian public art, consumer exchange rarely comes into play. hcma’s support of the Faraday Café gave me a basis for future experiments with this kind of work,” says Julien.

Community Impact

Julien interviewed by The Province

“I want to give people an opportunity to experience life without bombardment of digital signals. And I don’t think that we need to leave the city to get away from digital  digital technology. I think we can build structures, create scenarios where we can seek refuge, only for the time it takes to drink a coffee.”

Julien Thomas

Julien interviewed by The Province 

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