Crafty Play

Craft practices are sometimes more than satisfying and challenging activities that are fulfilling and meaningful for their own sake. Craft can also be a hands-on means to rework the world: a tool for critical engagement, political advocacy, and social action. This discussion brings together three contemporary artists whose work expresses the sometimes-subversive power of handmaking, direct experience, citizen initiative, and DIY activity.

The three speakers will draw on their own experiences using craft and making as a way to build agency, solidarity, and community. Artist and curator Lorna Brown, formerly Associate Director of UBC’s Belkin Art Gallery, uses laborious processes such as hand embroidery to mark personal and collective time and overlooked cultural phenomena. Media artist, designer, and skateboarder Garnet Hertz argues in his book Art + DIY Electronics (MIT Press, 2023) for the value of kludging one’s own technology and revealing the rough edges of media artworks; most recently, he has brought this hands-on approach to operate within the graffiti community. Artist, architect, and filmmaker Christian Huizenga, from the Zenga Bros. family of makers, builds meticulously crafted, often skateable, public art and leads the initiative School of Direct Experience, providing hands-on experience in architectural design and construction.

Attendees are encouraged to bring their own in-progress needlework or handiwork to work on during the session. Optionally, beginning at 4:00 pm in the Coach House, Green College Leading Scholars Alex Tavasoli and Germaine Koh will teach beginners how to knit. Yarn and knitting needles will be provided. 

This event is open to the general public and does not require registration (but please note that our seating is limited). A reception in the Piano Lounge, Graham House, will follow this event.

Series image: Germaine Koh, Tools and Twister, part of League Nanaimo, 2025.

Lorna Brown is a Vancouver-based artist, curator, writer, and editor. She is a founding member of Other Sights for Artists’ Projects; was the director/curator of Artspeak Gallery from 1999 to 2004; and was acting director/curator at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at UBC. Brown has taught at Simon Fraser University and Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where she received an honorary doctorate of letters in 2015. Awards include the VIVA Award (1996). Her work is in the collections of the Belkin, SFU Galleries, the National Gallery of Canada, the BC Arts Council, the Surrey Art Gallery, and the Canada Council Art Bank. Learn more about her work here: https://lornabrown.ca.

Garnet Hertz is an associate professor of Design at Emily Carr University, and former Canada Research Chair in Design and Media Arts. His art and research investigate DIY culture, electronic art, and critical design practices. He has exhibited in eighteen countries in venues including SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica, and DEAF, and has won top international awards for his work, including the Oscar Signorini Award in robotic art, a Fulbright award, and Best Paper Award at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). He has worked as faculty at Art Center College of Design, and as a research scientist at the University of California, Irvine. His research is widely cited in academic publications, and popular press on his work has been disseminated through 25 countries, including in publications like The New York Times, Wired, The Washington Post, NPR, USA Today, NBC, CBS, TV Tokyo, and CNN Headline News. Learn more about his work here: http://conceptlab.com/.

Christian Huizenga is an interdisciplinary artist, architect, and filmmaker who primarily works in sculpture and large-scale public installations. His practice engages with ideas of citizen-initiated architecture and craft, and the merger of the built environment with nature. Christian started the practice Studio Huizenga in 2014; founded The School of Direct Experience, a roaming design-build architecture and craft school in 2021; and has worked collectively with his brothers under the name Zenga Brothers since 2008. Learn more about his practice here: https://www.studiohuizenga.com