Media Release

Presented by The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency and Footscray Community Arts, artists Atheana Picha (CAN) and Tarryn Love (AUS) will trade places for a pair of 6-week residencies.

RICHMOND, BC — The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency has unveiled a season-long  project providing residency and community engagement opportunities for two Indigenous artists and culture-bearers from Lower Mainland BC and from Melbourne, Australia, partly funded and supported by The Australia Council for the Arts. The two artists, Atheana Picha (Vancouver, CA) and Tarryn Love (Melbourne, AU), will trade places in a pair of 6-week overseas residency exchanges. These two residencies continue to build on this evolving multi-year collaboration process between the Blue Cabin and Footscray Community Arts, which began with their inaugural Australian resident in Fall 2019, Vicki Couzens. Following the second year of collaborative programs, a digital exchange residency in 2021 entitled Tidal Volume, the two organizations are excited to return this Fall for the third iteration of their collaboration for in-person residencies and free community events.

The residency exchange takes place this September through November, and draws on what the Blue Cabin and Footscray Community Arts have learned in their previous two years of working in partnership. The first artist, Tarryn Love, will arrive in Steveston, Richmond, BC on September 5 for a residency hosted by the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency from September 5 through October 17, 2023, and will reside at Branscombe House during this period. Atheana Picha’s residency activates immediately after, hosted by Footscray Community Arts in Melbourne, Australia from October 18 through November 29, 2023. Both artists will host and facilitate free events throughout the Fall for local audiences in their respective host regions during their stays, including opportunities for community engagement such as workshops, talks, and studio tours.

Atheana Picha is a Salish artist from the Kwantlen First Nation, and her grandmother was from Tsartlip. Atheana has been doing two apprenticeships learning Salish wool weaving with Musqueam weaver Debra Sparrow since 2019, and learning silver engraving, wood carving, and tool making with Squamish artist and educator Aaron Nelson-Moody since 2018. Atheana’s practice is grounded in learning more about Salish design through studying the old pieces, observing nature, and learning from her elders and teachers.

Tarryn Love is a proud Gunditjmara Keerray Woorroong woman, born and raised on Wadawurrung Country. Tarryn’s work represents the distinctiveness of Gunditjmara ways of Knowing, Being and Doing that is not one way but constantly happening and changing. She aims to explore identity in the here and now while centring language and carrying on the work of remembering, reclamation, regeneration, and revitalisation.

Established in 1974 by local artists and activists, Footscray Community Arts supports, develops and presents contemporary arts in Footscray, Melbourne, Australia in collaboration with their communities of focus: First Nations, culturally and linguistically diverse, LGBTIQA+ and artists with disability and connect with an engaged audience.

The Blue Cabin is a year-round artist residency currently moored at Imperial Landing (4280 Bayview Street). Built by a Norwegian carpenter in 1927, the cabin was sited near Cates Park on the North Shore for more than 80 years before undergoing extensive remediation. The cabin’s long-time inhabitants, prominent Canadian artists Al Neil and Carole Itter, as well its unique vernacular architecture and association to artistic happenings in the area, contribute to the heritage building’s cultural significance.

The Branscombe House Artist Residency takes place in a restored Edwardian-style house in the residential area of Steveston, and hosts long-term community-engaged arts residencies. Branscombe House, built in 1908 and restored in 2014, is located at 4900 Steveston Highway and is one of the earliest settler homes in the area. For 2023, the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency has partnered with The City of Richmond and Branscombe House to provide accommodations for Blue Cabin residents and co-host artist led public programs at the historic Branscombe House throughout the year.

For more information on the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency and upcoming programs with visiting artist Tarryn Love, visit www.thebluecabin.ca. For more information about Footscray Community Arts and their breadth of arts activities, including events with Atheana Picha, visit www.footscrayarts.com. To learn more about opportunities for artists in Richmond, including the Branscombe House Artist Residency, visit www.richmond.ca/culture/artistsopportunities/artist.

For further media information, contact: 
Joni Schinkel (Program Coordinator)
The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency
Email: program.coordinator@thebluecabin.ca
Cell: 403 651-6991