Artist in residence helped design mobile art studio

Three months after FLEET mobile art studio’s official opening in Edmonds Park, Snuneymuxw artist Eliot White-Hill, whose Coast Salish name is Kwulasultun, has finally started his artist residency at the studio. White-Hill has a special connection with the space; he helped design the mobile studio along with several other Indigenous artists who took inspiration from traditional Coast Salish longhouse design. 

“I’d actually been involved as a consultant with FLEET through the development of the studios, the planning of the project, and talking about our needs as urban Indigenous artists. Also, with the actual architectural design of the studios, which reference traditional Coast Salish longhouses,” White-Hill told the Beacon. 

White-Hill and other Indigenous artists provided feedback on the design during the consultation sessions, which took place over 12-14 months. 

“Within traditional Coast Salish art, the use of cedar is really important, but from a construction standpoint, using more sustainable materials is really what we wanted to emphasize,” White-Hill said. “I don’t know what they actually ended up using, but that was what we tried to make sure that we drove home in the consultation.”

White-Hill describes himself as an interdisciplinary artist and while most of his work involves digital art, he also paints, sculpts and creates public art installations.

He was supposed to start working at the studio in mid-July, but could only begin in early August due to delays in completing the studio’s construction. He is working on two upcoming art shows, one in October at Nanaimo Art Gallery and the other in early 2025 at the Cambridge Museum of Anthropology in the UK. The first show in Nanaimo will involve reimagining scenes from photographs taken in the 19th century. 

“I’m taking all of these historical photographs from Nanaimo and the mid-Island region of Nanaimo, of our villages, the land, and the colonial towns through the late 1800s. I’m trying to reimagine these scenes from my own perspective as a Snuneymuxw person, and to think about the kind of colonial lens of photography, and especially for Indigenous people,” White-Hill said. 

White-Hill credits his great-grandmother Snuneymuxw elder Ellen White as a significant source of inspiration. After she died in 2018 at 95, White-Hill began his artistic journey. His newfound love of art led him to pursue a master of fine arts degree at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, graduating in 2023. 

“I wasn’t really an artist at all growing up; it was only in the last five years or so that I started drawing. It was all after my great grandma passed away, and realizing how much knowledge went with her and how much more work I have to do to be able to continue her work when she was an educator, linguist, storyteller, and healer,” he said.  

In addition to his visual art, White-Hill also writes fiction and gravitates towards magical realism in his writing. He is working on a project that combines his visual art with his writing. 

“I’m working on a children’s storybook right now about Salish woolly dogs, a special breed of dog that we had as Salish people. I have done the illustrations, and the story originally came from an elder in my community, so we’re co-authoring it, but I’ve rewritten it in my own style,” he said. 

With the delays getting into the studio as the final elements of construction were completed, White-Hill is pressed for time to get as much work done before the residency ends on September 7. Even though he is busy, he plans to give a public talk to the community, although he has yet to decide on the details, such as the time and place.

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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