Date/Time
Date(s) - 15/10/2023
1:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Location
Moberly Arts Centre

Categories

• Community Event

Autumn Fibre & Film Celebration

Exploring and celebrating the interconnectedness of plant fibres, the hand technologies that spin fibres to threads and sharing the stories we weave through  film.

Sunday October 15 1-4pm

Moberly Arts Centre 

7646 Prince Albert St, Vancouver, BC

Join us for this very special afternoon that includes a unique opportunity to work with fireweed and nettle; both wild plant fibres for spinning and rope making. Experienced spinners are invited to try  the first few prototypes of blackberry composite  drop spindles made from  the stalks of invasive Himalayan blackberry, using both the nettle fibres and local fleece dyed with local plants, including fireweed. 

All of this fibre exploration  is a lead up to our feature event of screening The Nettle Dress, a film made by Dylan Howitt that documents British artist Allan Brown’s  seven year process of foraging nettles in his nearby forests and learning all the processes through to weaving a dress. 

The trailer to the film will be a film-short made by local community members working with the Echo Park Film Collective that shows the making of the drop spindles and processing of fibres we have just been handling- the film itself processed in nettles!

Total screening time for both films is approximately  1.15 minutes and will be followed by  a  short and informal Q and A with several of the artists in these projects. 

Artists bios

Sam Alder (they/them) is an Industrial Designer of Swiss, Irish/English, Swedish and Romanian descent living on Unceded Coast Salish territory. They grew up Unschooled prior to entering college, and studied Blacksmithing, Mechanical Engineering And Robotics before engaging with Industrial and Product Design. They approach problem solving from a big picture and context aware position, using phenomenological, sensory and artistic thinking to navigate adjacent to techno-realism. They are deeply passionate about imagining how energy and materials will move in a post-imperial world.

Paolo Davanzo and Lisa Marr are filmmakers, eco-arts adventurers and community cinema activists whose work is a catalyst for creative collaboration and positive social change. Find out more at epfccollective.org

Chrystal Sparrow is a Musqueam Coast Salish artist from a long line of Coast Salish artists, weavers and three generations of carvers. Her late father Irving Sparrow was a master carver that passed down the tradition to Chrystal and her brother Christopher. As a child, she was given the privilege to be traditionally taught Coast Salish art and carving skill sets that would give her the status to become a female Coast Salish artist. Chrystal has been working with the EartHand community co-learning about nettle and fireweed.

Sharon Kallis is the founding director and lead artist of EartHand Gleaners Society, and with this ever-evolving  community of makers creates  social containers for sharing experiences to help us all relearn being in relations of reciprocity and empathy for the plants and animals to whom we are reliant for our clothing and more.

Allan Brown ( virtual for event)

Based in Brighton UK, Allan is a textile artist who began his nettles for textiles journey many years ago. As co-founder of the nettles for textiles facebook group that now has over 26,000 followers he has been central to the international movement of reclaiming for nettles  their proper place of respect!

Event Host: Amy Walker of Makemobile will be our community host for the afternoon

More about The Nettle Dress film and Allan Brown’s work:

A MODERN-DAY FAIRYTALE AND HYMN TO THE HEALING POWER OF NATURE AND SLOW CRAFT.

THIS IS ‘HEDGEROW COUTURE’, THE GREENEST OF SLOW FASHION AND ALSO HIS MEDICINE.

IT’S HOW HE SURVIVES THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE AND FINDS A BEAUTIFUL WAY TO HONOUR HER. ( from film website, nettledress.org)

EartHand acknowledges the support of the Vancouver Park Board Neighbourhood Matching Funds which made  a limited number of free spaces available for this program to support the learning garden stewards and artists to attend for free. Thank you to our project partners, the Moberly Arts Centre and Echo Park Film Centre.

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