Create Makerspace · Sḵwx̱wú7mesh / Squamish

Design
Public Art

Seven evenings across Squamish studios and workshops, from September 22nd to November 24th. How large-scale art for festivals actually gets designed, shown by the people who build it.

Free to attend. Come to one, come to all of them.

The design is the hard part, not the welding

Scoping it, costing it, working out what it's for, knowing whether it survives four days in a field. Most people who want to build something big get stuck long before they get near a tool, and that's the part nobody teaches.

So that's what these evenings are about. Each one is somewhere different, hosted by a Squamish maker or space in their own room, and each takes on one piece of the problem.

The seven evenings

  1. Tue Sep 227–9pm
    The Brackendale Art Gallery sign, a painted eagle on a round wooden board, in front of the timber building and cedars

    Info Night, Visioning Workshop & Social

    Brackendale Art Gallery · 41950 Government Rd

    What the series is, what you could make, and a drink with everyone else who turned up.

  2. Tue Sep 297–9pm
    The Happimess studio in Squamish, a bright white room strung with coloured pendant lights, tables of art materials and people browsing

    Drawing & clay sculpture

    Happimess Art Studio · 39455 Discovery Way, Unit 106

    Getting an idea out of your head and into something you can turn around in your hands.

  3. Tue Oct 137–9pm
    Workbenches in the Create Makerspace studio, potters wheels and tools with finished pieces drying

    Maker skills & materials

    Create Makerspace · #1–39449 Queens Way

    What the tools can actually do, what you can build things out of, and which of either your idea needs.

  4. Sun Oct 251–3pm
    Prosthesis, a huge white four-legged mech, standing in desert scrub at sunset with its pilot in a red suit beneath it for scale

    Prosthesis

    Squamish Valley · meeting point emailed beforehand

    A 4,000kg, 200-horsepower, human-controlled mech suit. Yes, really. Daytime, so you can actually see it.

  5. Tue Nov 107–9pm
    A laptop open on a table at The Common coworking space, with meeting tables, office chairs and tall windows behind

    Digital design

    The Common · 38016 Cleveland Ave

    Getting your idea into drawings a festival will actually accept.

  6. Tue Nov 177–9pm
    An illustration of Squamish Public Library, a low modern building with evergreens and the mountains behind it

    Application writing

    Squamish Public Library · 37907 Second Ave

    The paperwork around the drawings: budget, safety, materials, and what a jury is actually reading for.

  7. Tue Nov 247–9pm
    The Brackendale Art Gallery sign and timber building, where Pitch Night is held

    Pitch Night

    Brackendale Art Gallery · 41950 Government Rd

    An open call: pitch a public art project to a room that includes the people who fund them. Come to pitch, or come to watch.

Venues are spread across Squamish and Brackendale, so check the address before you set off.

What this looks like built

Deep Union, a lit ceremonial arch at night with people gathered underneath at Bass Coast festival
Deep Union · Bass Coast
The Orcar, an orca sculpture built from a decommissioned car
Orcar
The Noodle Box installation, a lit box structure hung with pool noodles
Wild Noods
A glowing jellyfish-shaped canopy hung inside a tent, trailing strings of lights down over a crowd
Rest Day

All built in Squamish, by people who mostly hadn't done it before.

Where it leads

The intended next step is Create Public Art 2027, an in-person build program running February to June, where designs become real objects in a workshop and go out to festivals in the summer.

Come along

Leave your email and we'll remind you before each evening. Nothing else, and the list isn't public.

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