Create Makerspace · Sḵwx̱wú7mesh / Squamish

Design
Public Art

An opening night at Create Makerspace on October 13th, drop-in Tuesdays there through November, a field trip to see Prosthesis and a Pitch Night at the Brackendale Art Gallery on November 24th, all about how large-scale art for festivals actually gets designed.

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. Bring a half-idea to the opening night, work on it at the drop-ins with other people doing the same (and the tools close by if you need them), and pitch it at the end if you want to.

Two streams

Festival art installation

Design something big for a BC festival like Bass Coast, Otherworld or the Squamish Arts Festival, the kind of piece people walk through, sit in or dance under, and pitch it at Pitch Night. From there it can go on to be built in Create Public Art 2027.

The Create Makerspace bench

A design competition for one bench, for Create Makerspace itself: something people will actually sit on, made from what the shop can cut, weld and finish. Pitch it at Pitch Night, and the winning design gets built and installed at Create.

Same evenings for both, and you don't have to pick yet.

The dates

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

    Opening Night

    Create Makerspace · #1–39449 Queens Way

    What the series is, what's been built here before, what you could make, and a drink with everyone else who turned up.

  2. Tuesdays7–9pm
    Two people at Create Makerspace looking closely at a laser-cut wooden panel, with shelves of materials behind them

    Drop-in nights

    Create Makerspace · #1–39449 Queens Way

    Oct 20, Oct 27, Nov 10 & Nov 17 (no Nov 3). Casual: bring whatever you're working on, sketch, ask questions, see what everyone else is up to. Come for an hour or the whole night.

  3. 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

    Field trip: 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.

  4. 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

    Pitch your festival installation or your bench design to a room that includes the people who fund public art, and the winning bench gets picked for Create. Come to pitch, or come to watch.

Everything's at Create Makerspace except the field trip and Pitch Night, 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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