Photo: Henri Robideau, 2019.

Situated in the unceded lands and waters of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency offers a vantage point from which to consider the city differently. International in scope but deeply rooted in the histories and narratives of this place, the Blue Cabin offers a unique opportunity to learn, explore and engage with the foreshore.

The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency brings forward a desire and need for alternate modes of living and working, and expands our understanding of what constitutes public space.

Despite Vancouver’s international reputation for producing exceptional artists, inflated real estate prices make it challenging for arts organizations to offer visiting artists spaces for research, experimentation, innovation, and exchange. Artist residencies exist worldwide, and the experiences of those who have been lucky enough to take part are often described as life-changing and transformational. Recognizing this need for such a generative space, the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency presents an opportunity that is unique to this region while global in its reach.

The Blue Cabin sat between the low and high tide lines at Cates Park in North Vancouver since 1932 and has resisted ownership for nearly 100 years. It was home to maritime labourers and families – and since the late ‘60s was a place of creative respite and subsistence for Vancouver artists Al Neil and Carole Itter. Representing the last vestiges of a cultural tradition of artists and others living in squatter shacks along the foreshores of this region’s waterways, Al Neil and Carole Itter’s Blue Cabin was one of many structures that dotted the shores of Burrard Inlet. In 2014, the land adjacent to the cabin, McKenzie Barge and Marine Ways Co. Ltd., was sold to Polygon Homes for redevelopment, initiating the remediation of the foreshore and the small cove the Blue Cabin was nestled within. To avoid demolition, the cabin was moved five kilometres west to a secure storage lot, then later to Maplewood Farm in North Vancouver where it underwent a full remediation, completed in February 2018.

The Blue Cabin floated into Vancouver’s False Creek in summer 2019. In the fall of 2019, the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency launched Skeins: Weaving on the Foreshore, the inaugural program of artist residencies, open houses, talks and workshops, a celebration of Coast Salish weaving practices that have developed in these territories since time immemorial. In January 2022, the Cabin moved to Imperial Landing in the City of Richmond’s historic Steveston Village for 2 years of local and international artist residencies and public programming.

Since 2015, grunt gallery, Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, and Creative Cultural Collaborations have been committed to ensuring the Cabin’s legacy continues, and that its use as a floating artist residency will benefit both artists and broader public alike.

Learn more at thebluecabin.ca

For general inquiries please contact info@thebluecabin.ca 

Please consider donating to the Blue Cabin project. Your support is important in achieving our mission.

Jeremy and Sus Borsos – The Blue Cabin Exhibition

ARTISTS: Jeremy and Sus Borsos

CURATOR: Glenn Alteen

OPENING RECEPTION: June 14, 7 – 9 PM

EXHIBITION DATES: June 15 to July 28, 2018

THE BLUE CABIN SPEAKER SERIES:

Wednesday, June 20 at 7:00 p.m.
Artist talk with Jeremy Borsos
Artist Jeremy Borsos will give a talk describing the restoration of the small 1920’s building known as the Blue Cabin. The talk will focus on possible translations of the cabin’s history.

Thursday, June 28 at 7:00 p.m.
Daniel Francis | Squat City: A Brief History of Squatting Around Burrard Inlet
Author and historian Daniel Francis will speak about the history of squatter villages on the region’s foreshore.

Saturday, July 7 at 2:00 p.m.
Carole Itter in conversation with Krista Lomax
Artist Carole Itter will present an informal talk about her artwork and writings during her 35 year-long residency at the Blue Cabin. She will be joined by artist and editor Krista Lomax.

Thursday, July 12 at 7:00 p.m.
Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, The Foreshore
Artist Jen Weih and curator and artist Vanessa Kwan will speak about The Foreshore, a project produced by Other Sights, in collaboration with Access Gallery and the Contemporary Art Gallery.

Thursday, July 19 at 7:00 p.m.
The Blue Cabin Project
Blue Cabin founding partners Glenn Alteen, Esther Rausenberg, and Barbara Cole will discuss the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency project.

*To keep up to date with The Blue Cabin, please sign up for a separate newsletter online here.

When Jeremy Borsos and his wife, Sus, took on the remediation of the Blue Cabin, we at grunt never expected what would eventually come out of it! Using historical materials, they took the structure apart, methodically cleaned every inch, and replaced the rotted out bits. They insulated the walls and fixed the floor. Essentially, they treated it as an archaeological site, collecting its history in scraps of newspapers and mouse nests and, in an archival process, painstakingly saved what remained. The humble structure revealed itself slowly over the six-month period of the restoration and culminated – when they took up the floor – in the discovery of almost 40 posters that had been put there in 1927 to prevent the floor from squeaking.

In this exhibition, the Borsos’ present a body of work that documents this journey, while providing us a history of the cabin before Al Neil and Carole Itter’s tenancy, and offering us new insights into the earlier inhabitants— squatters, and marine workers on the foreshore.

Jeremy Borsos attended Emily Carr School of Art and the Art Students League in New York. His practice is multidisciplinary and includes writing, photography, installation, painting, and video. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. Together with his partner, Sus, the Borsos have developed a meta-historical use of salvaged architecture, constructing multiple dwellings and ancillary structures.

Sus Borsos was born in Denmark and studied statistics and computer sciences at Copenhagen University before managing Scandinavian Stage Design, where she oversaw the creation of stages for major events in Europe. After relocating to Canada in 1992, she worked with her husband, Jeremy Borsos, on constructing their Mayne Island home created from salvaged architectural fragments. Sus has also worked in digital film editing and design, and image output for reproduction.

Together, Sus and Jeremy have constructed a number of buildings using period architectural salvage. They have most recently completed a full remediation of the Blue Cabin, the studio component of a soon to be launched floating artist residency in Vancouver, Canada. Among Jeremy and Sus’s current creative projects is the redesigning and rebuilding of a studio and living space in Athens, Greece. They live and work on Mayne Island, British Columbia, and in Athens, Greece.

The Blue Cabin project is led by grunt gallery, along with Other Sights for Artists Projects, and Creative Cultural Collaborations (C3). This program has been supported by the Hamber Foundation.

Download the PDF of the catalogue and essay by Scott Watson

Photo: Henri Robideau, 2019

The Blue Cabin floated into Vancouver’s False Creek in summer 2019. In the fall of 2019, the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency launched Skeins: Weaving on the Foreshore, the inaugural program of artist residencies, open houses, talks and workshops. Situated in the unceded lands and waters of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency offers a vantage point from which to consider the city differently. International in scope but deeply rooted in the histories and narratives of this place, the Blue Cabin offers a unique opportunity to learn, explore and engage with the foreshore.

The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency brings forward a desire and need for alternate modes of living and working, and expands our understanding of what constitutes public space.

Despite Vancouver’s international reputation for producing exceptional artists, inflated real estate prices make it challenging for arts organizations to offer visiting artists spaces for research, experimentation, innovation, and exchange. Artist residencies exist worldwide, and the experiences of those who have been lucky enough to take part are often described as life-changing and transformational. Recognizing this need for such a generative space, the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency presents an opportunity that is unique to this region while global in its reach.

The Blue Cabin sat between the low and high tide lines at Cates Park in North Vancouver since 1932 and has resisted ownership for nearly 100 years. It was home to maritime labourers and families – and since the late ‘60s was a place of creative respite and subsistence for Vancouver artists Al Neil and Carole Itter. Representing the last vestiges of a cultural tradition of artists and others living in squatter shacks along the foreshores of this region’s waterways, Al Neil and Carole Itter’s Blue Cabin was one of many structures that dotted the shores of Burrard Inlet. In 2014, the land adjacent to the cabin, McKenzie Barge and Marine Ways Co. Ltd., was sold to Polygon Homes for redevelopment, initiating the remediation of the foreshore and the small cove the Blue Cabin was nestled within. To avoid demolition, the cabin was moved five kilometres west to a secure storage lot, then later to Maplewood Farm in North Vancouver where it underwent a full remediation, completed in February 2018.

Skeins: Weaving on the Foreshore is a celebration of Coast Salish weaving practices that have developed in these territories since time immemorial. As such, it is anchored by the participation of weavers from the three local nations: Debra Sparrow from Musqueam, Janice George and Buddy Joseph of Squamish, and Angela George from Squamish/ Tsleil-Waututh. Skeins also includes a residency with Australian Indigenous artist and activist Vicki Couzens (Gunditjmara) produced in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts. Rooted in the local, and spanning the international, these artists bring a long history of cultural, ceremonial and community involvement, organizing and reclaiming, aesthetics and activism.

Since 2015, Creative Cultural Collaborations, grunt gallery and Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, and have been committed to ensuring the cabin’s legacy continues, and that its use as a floating artist residency will benefit both artists and broader public alike.

Learn more at thebluecabin.ca

For general inquiries please contact info@thebluecabin.ca 

Skeins: Weaving on the Foreshore has been assisted by Vancouver Foundation, the City of Vancouver Public Art Boost program and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency is grateful for the visionary support of Vancouver Foundation, the City of Vancouver, Heritage Canada’s Cultural Spaces Program, British Columbia Arts Council, BC Museums Association Canada 150 Program, BC Collaborative Spaces Program, District of North Vancouver, Wayne Saunders, Fred McMaster and Larry Carrier of Vancouver Pile Driving Ltd., Carole Itter, Marko Simcic of Simcic + Ulrich Architects, Australia Council for the Arts, Canadian Metropolitan Properties Corporation, Maplewood Farm, Polygon Homes, Canexus Corporation, Jane Irwin and Ross Hill, PM-Volunteers, Harold Kalman, Andrew Todd Conservators Ltd, Ian McMurdo, Wayne Poole, Lisa Muri, Clint Low of Bush Bohlman & Partners, Carlo Elholm of Advisian Engineers, Jeremy and Sus Borsos, Germaine Koh Studio Ltd., The Audain Foundation, Lehigh Hanson, Harris Steel, Inform Interiors, Native Shoes, Brent Comber Originals, K. Joseph Spears and Monica Ahlroos of Horseshoe Bay Marine Group, European Touch Hardwoods, Rick Erickson and Donna Partridge, Heritage BC, San Cedar, Robinson Lighting and Bath, Fasteel, Standard Building Supplies, ShapeMeasure, Fine Art Framing, Vancouver Renewable Energy Cooperative, Ames Tile & Stone, Australian High Commission, The Hamber Foundation, Port of Vancouver North Shore Waterfront Liaison Committee and our other generous supporters and donors.

The volunteer team that continues to work to develop the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency consists of Glenn Alteen, Program Director of grunt gallery, Barbara Cole, Director of Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, and Esther Rausenberg, Co-artistic Director of Creative Cultural Collaborations.

Join our Blue Cabin Newsletter list here. 

Please consider donating to the Blue Cabin project. Your support is important in achieving our mission.

Photo courtesy of Michael Jackson, PM Volunteers

Representing the last vestiges of a cultural tradition of artists and others living in squatters’ shacks along the foreshores of this region’s waterways, Al Neil and Carole Itter’s Blue Cabin was one of many structures that dotted the shores of Indian Arm.

Recently, the land adjacent to the cabin, MacKenzie Barge and Shipbuilding, was sold to Polygon Homes for redevelopment. Under their agreement with Port Metro, Polygon must remediate the foreshore, including the small cove the Blue Cabin was nestled within. To avoid demolition, the cabin was moved 5 kilometres west to a secure storage lot for repair and remediation.

Along with Other Sights for Artists’ Projects and Creative Cultural Collaborations, grunt gallery has a vision to save the cabin and continue its use as an artist residency on the waterways of the Lower Mainland. The following documents were produced in consultation with a number of stakeholders in the community to aid in planning and solicit support for the Blue Cabin’s future.

Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency: Preliminary Feasibility Report by Barbara Cole, Cole Projects

A Plan for the Conservation and Re-use of the Blue Cabin by Harold Kalman with Andrew Todd Conservators Ltd.

Blue Cabin Partner Information and Bios

Blue Cabin Project Support Letters

Jeremy Borsos on the Blue Cabin remediation, October 3, 2017 at 7 pm at the Seymour Art Gallery.

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Title: Program Director
Pronouns: they/them/theirs
Email: katrina@grunt.ca
Ask them about: any general information about grunt, our programming, including exhibitions, the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen, and the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency, calls for submissions, special projects, and partnership opportunities.

Name Pronunciation: First name: kah-TREE-nah. Last name: or-LOV-ski

Biography

Katrina Orlowski, Program Director, is a cultural worker, curator and artist who has spent over a decade in the artist-run communities of Vancouver and Toronto. They are a white, queer, disabled settler of Eastern European and Irish descent who has lived most of their life on the lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Their background includes a decade in academia and a couple of decades working and dreaming in DIY community arts spaces, with particular focus on film, video and media arts. They are excited by collaborative processes, intersectional knowledge exchange, and experiments with language and storytelling. As Program Director, Katrina oversees all aspects of grunt’s programming and planning.

Contact Information

Email: katrina@grunt.ca
Best way to contact Katrina: Please email or call grunt gallery at 604-875-9516 to leave a message for them. They work both from home and at the grunt office.

Visual Description

Katrina is 5’9”, white, with very short auburn hair, large glasses, a silver nose ring, and many black ink tattoos mainly on their arms and one on their left hand. They dress in a casual style that suits their comfort and fun, almost always have bright coloured nail polish, and generally wear highly cushioned and supportive sneakers.

Image Description: A close-up photo of Katrina with a slight smile on their face and one hand casually curled in front of their chest. They have big, dark green plastic-framed glasses, a nose ring, a silver chain necklace and orange-painted nails. Behind them is a big sunny window with plants hanging.

The board and staff of the Visible Art Society are excited to announce the appointment of Katrina Orlowski as the incoming Program Director of grunt gallery. We welcome Katrina’s diverse experience and artistic vision as they undertake this essential leadership position. Katrina has worked with grunt as Communications and Project Manager for four years and will step into their new role co-directing the organization as of October 10th, 2023.

Katrina brings a strong commitment to accessibility, community care and interdisciplinary experimentation. At grunt, they have been deeply involved in the organization’s curatorial processes, the launch of both the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen and the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency, the growth of grunt’s digital programming and special partnership initiatives. Katrina’s fresh perspective on leadership, their programming insight, grant writing acumen and immersion in a variety of art communities both local and abroad is an asset to the gallery and marks a new and invigorating moment at grunt.

“The board is excited by the breadth of expertise and the expansive vision that Katrina brings to this role. Their leadership will be vital in this pivotal moment in grunt’s trajectory.” — Diyan Achjadi, outgoing Board President

Katrina is a cultural worker and artist who has spent over a decade in the artist-run communities of Vancouver and Toronto. Their work as an administrator, curator and programmer is built from a foundation in DIY creative cultures as well as critical academic inquiry. Katrina has served as the President of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres, as a curator at Pleasure Dome, a programmer with Images Festival and VIFF, and holds a Masters of Communication and Culture from York University. Katrina is a white, queer, disabled settler who has lived most of their life on the lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Tidal Volume is a digital artist residency featuring Indigenous artists from Vancouver and Melbourne, Australia. Tidal Volume is designed as a ‘call and response’ residency that creates an opportunity for Indigenous culture-bearers and artists to work with sound, song, language, spoken word and text to connect across distance. Produced in the context of the pandemic, Tidal Volume asks us to consider what presence means when we can’t be in physical spaces together. How might we communicate — and listen — differently?

The waterways and coastlines of Vancouver and Melbourne set the basis for exploration: both ocean and river represent rich history, complex currents, exchange and deep knowledge. It is also a contentious place, a defining factor in increasingly urgent discussions around nationhood, access, jurisdictional boundaries and climate change. As we seek to revisit, explore and nurture histories of the foreshore, we also seek to provide a space and a support network for artists to interrogate and expand our understanding of the land and waters around us.

Artists Salia Joseph (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Snuneymuxw) and Orene Askew (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh) participated in this 4-week exploratory sound-based exchange with Maya Hodge (Lardil & Yangkaal) and Jarra Steel (Boonwurrung & Wemba Wemba) from September 27th—October 24th, 2021. Learn more about the artists here.

Click here to watch a captioned recording of the final event and artwork presentation, which took place online on November 19th, 2021.

Tidal Volume is presented by grunt gallery and The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency (Vancouver, CA) in collaboration with Footscray Community Arts Centre (Melbourne, AU).

Funded by the generous support of the Australia Council for the Arts and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Image: Jarra Karalinar Steel, 2021.

As of  Friday May 29th 2020, grunt gallery’s founder Glenn Alteen, who served as the gallery’s Program Director for 37 years, has retired. The staff and board of grunt are incredibly grateful for the energy, ingenuity and spirit Alteen has given grunt since the very beginning; he has fostered an extraordinary community of artists, curators, and cultural workers that extends from Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood across Canada and internationally.

Since grunt’s inception in 1984, Alteen has recognized the value in platforming diverse voices and supporting artists through their creative processes, and has been committed to providing resources for artists to exhibit work that might otherwise go unrecognized. His boundless generosity and bold approach has been instrumental in building the vitality of the gallery and relationships with many exceptional artists and curators, including Rebecca Belmore, Dana Claxton, Margaret Dragu, Aiyyana Maracle, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Carole Itter, Adrian Stimson, Tania Willard, and Tarah Hogue. Throughout his career, Alteen has pushed boundaries with projects such as Queer City (1993), An Indian Act: Shooting the Indian Act (1997) by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, and the co-founding of LIVE Biennial of Performance Art in 1999. Showing no signs of slowing down, in 2019 Alteen and grunt launched three of their most ambitious projects to date: Wordless: The Performance Art of Rebecca Belmore, the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency, and the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen.

His connections to artists is truly unique, and his commitment to long-term creative relationships has built a community around grunt that spans generations, cultural communities and disciplinary boundaries. Dana Claxton recalls:

“I think I first met Glenn at the Pitt Gallery on Water Street in the late 1980s. Early on in the realm of programming NDN’ art work, he was committed, supportive, made enormous space and provided guidance in a way, he may not even be aware of the guidance he gave. Our early morning talks for many years, as he would dream up projects…he makes ideas become concrete. And it was never about him, but always what can happen for other people.”

Alteen has championed intuitive, organic and artist-driven creation, while simultaneously ensuring the continued growth and stability of grunt itself. By developing grunt’s programming archive, securing a permanent space for the gallery and the creation of an endowment fund, Alteen has cemented the longevity of grunt and contributed to the sustainability of artist-driven culture in Vancouver. He was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2018 for his decades of exceptional contributions to the arts in Canada. Glenn Alteen has been a visionary for grunt gallery and Vancouver’s visual arts communities, and has left an enduring mark on the ways we work through, with and around art.

His unique perspective will carry forward into grunt’s future, and will continue to shape the organization. Incoming Program Director Vanessa Kwan, who has shared the role with him since last June, says:

“In so many ways, Glenn embodies what we hope for in a more compassionate art community. His leadership has taught so many of us about the importance of both resistance and care. His work proposes something no less than a revolution in how we understand a successful (dare I say legendary?) career in the arts: that ambition can be expressed as generosity, and that capital–cultural, financial and otherwise–is best shared widely rather than being kept to oneself.”

As grunt honours Alteen’s remarkable career and contributions to the art community, we are also proud to announce the re-naming of our endowment to the Glenn Alteen Legacy Fund, and we invite you to contribute to the future of the organization, and the furthering of its unique vision. More information can be found here.

Thank you so much, Glenn, for your audacity, persistence, disgruntlement and care.

Photo: Portrait of Glenn Alteen by Henri Robideau, Jaunary 1987.

grunt gallery’s Succession Plan for the transition of Program Directors

Program Director Glenn Alteen has worked with grunt since its inception in 1984 and in May of 2020 will retire after 36 years in the position. In early 2018 the board and staff of the gallery began activating our Succession Plan designed to provide as little disruption to the organization as possible during the transition of Program Directors. Our informed and active Succession Committee consisting of current and former board members and staff were tasked with addressing hiring in relation to leadership succession. After extensive work, the Committee has unrolled a timeline and hiring process for the transition. The Committee continues to refine this process on an ongoing basis and will address any succession planning issues as they arise.

A year-long transition period is being planned for the new Program Director in order to provide a seamless changeover and to download grunt’s programming and funding processes and allow for introductions to long-term artists, supporters and funders. grunt incorporated a Management Transition Reserve Fund into annual budgets since 2016 to facilitate this transition.

Formed in 1984, grunt gallery has built a reputation on innovative and dynamic programming: exhibitions, performances, artist talks, publications and special projects that showcase work by contemporary Canadian and international artists. grunt focuses on work and artists that would otherwise not be seen in Vancouver. We are proud of our ability to act as an intersection between various cultural groups based on aesthetics, medium or identity. With emerging programs such as the Blue Cabin Residency and the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen grunt is expanding and developing its range, providing artists with new and exciting opportunities and audiences with unique and important experiences.

The Program Director job call will be released on Friday, January 18, 2019. You can access information from grunt gallery’s website grunt.ca and follow grunt gallery news through our monthly newsletter and social media channels: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Contact Us:

Meagan Kus , Director of Operations

email: meagan at grunt dot ca
phone: #604-875-9516