Residency: April 1 – May 13, 2025

Ariane Xay Kuyaas’ is an artist who has studied and practiced ancestral style Haida weaving for most of her life, and comes from a long line of world-renowned Haida spruce root hat and basket weavers. Growing up at Old Massett village on Haida Gwaii where she still lives, she was mentored by her aunt Isabel Rorick and has studied work by her great great grandmother Isabella Edenshaw and great grandmother Florence Davidson in museum collections. She is inspired by the quality of design and functionality in ancestral woven pieces and adapts these practices by harvesting and processing her materials, spinning her own warp threads and often sewing the textiles by hand. Spruce root weaving is a challenging process, and Ariane weaves the materials attending to tension and spacing, using a Z twist and design placement, and with the intention to create the desired shape rather than using molds. Learning both spruce root and wool textile weaving has helped her create original pieces for chiefs, for community members who partake in cultural ceremonies, and for those who wear regalia for special occasions. While in residence, Ariane will visit the collections of Museum of Vancouver, the Vancouver Maritime Museum and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC amongst others.

Ariane has presented her work as part of the Identity, Representation & Resistance exhibition (2023) at Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle; at the Bringing to Life: Traditional Indigenous Art Practice in Museums roundtable as part of the SDING K’AWXANGS – Haida: Supernatural exhibition (2019) at the McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal, and at the Canadian Museum of History (2019). She received the mid-career Artist Scholarship award from the YVR Foundation in 2023, and her work was honoured as Best in Endangered Arts Division at Sealaska Heritage Institute’s eleventh biennial.

During her residency, Ariane will present her work at an artist talk in collaboration with the Museum of Vancouver and as at an Open House event at the Cabin in collaboration with the Vancouver Maritime Museum.

Ariane’s residency is generously supported by the British Columbia Arts Council and the Province of British Columbia.

Residency programs:

Artist Talk with Ariane Xay Kuyaas’ and Caitlin Aleck, Te-awk-tenaw at the Museum of Vancouver

April 16, 2025 at 2-3:30 PM

Open House with Ariane Xay Kuyaas’ at the Blue Cabin, Heritage Harbor, Vancouver

May 10th, 2025 from 1 – 3 pm