Slow Social Club: Marpole Neighbourhood House

Create your own set of plant-printed journals in a series of workshops inspired by the humans, plants and animals of Marpole. Marpole-based ecoartist, musician and facilitator Stevan Oostenbrug will share a variety of eco-printing and paper-making techniques using plants gathered and grown in the neighborhood. Explore the colours and textures of summer blooms, fall conifers, and seasonal shifts alongside stories of life in Marpole.

What to expect

Each event will use varied mediums to colour or create paper depending on the time of year and available plants. Many of these processes include elements of waiting – about forty-five minutes to an hour. During this time we’ll do experiments with gelatin plate printing and plant pigments. This is a technique that’s normally done with acrylic paint, so we’ll be testing a new method together. We’ll also share informal conversation about our relationships within the neighborhood and land. When the paper is finished, we will bind the ecoprinted pages into a small journal.

Throughout the following month, participants will respond in their journal to prompts provided by Stevan. Prompts will focus on our connections to the neighbourhood, such as familial ties, mobility, memory, and ecological spaces. Attending multiple events is not mandatory, but it’s encouraged, since we’ll share our previous month’s writings at the following event.

These workshops are intended for us to create art together in ways that feel safe for everyone. There’s never any pressure to share more than you’d like.

Artist statement

The process of ecoprinting alongside our neighbors with local plants will reflect the people, plants, and stories of organisms that live in the Marpole area.

“I grew up in Abbotsford’s suburban areas for most of my life. There, I felt a small-town connection with the neighborhood that I didn’t feel when I moved to Vancouver for my post-secondary schooling. As a resident of so-called Vancouver, I’ve often heard it described as a lonely city. One small antidote that I’ve started for myself is making art alongside local gardens, natural dyeing fabrics or paper with plants that I’ve harvested from those spaces. Through this practice, I’ve developed deeper connections with my neighborhood by learning about its seasonal cycles, talking with my neighbors, and learning about the work that my neighbors have done before I came to this city.”

Details

Jul 16, 5pm – 7pm

Ecoprinting on paper: summer blooms/high noon

Reveal the bright colours of summer flowers on paper

Aug 6, 5pm – 7pm

Paper recycling, with dried flowers

Create light-grey handmade paper speckled by colourful local flowers

Sept 10, 4pm – 6pm

Ecoprinting on paper: iron dipping, saddening, shifting

Bundle Fall plants and paper then shift these to a deeper tone with an iron wash

Oct 29, 4pm – 6pm

Ecoprinting on paper: iron-infused pine cones

Bundle paper and plants in an iron and pine cone bath to produce grey, red, and brown tones

Nov 19, 4pm – 6pm

Conifer resist dyes

Bundle conifer prunings and paper in a dye bath to reveal images of their needles

About Stevan Oostenbrug

Stevan Oostenbrug is a queer interdisciplinary artist, musician, and event organizer based on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples. His artistic practice touches on environmental relationships, gentleness, interpersonal issues, mental health, and collective action. Stevan brings his wide scope of practices and experience to create spaces for all people to explore non-heirarchical and radical ways of thinking.