Burnaby Blooms

The programs below require pre-registration. Click the links below to register on WebReg.

Some of the talks and tours below require pre-registration. Click the links below to register on WebReg. All Talks & Tours start at the Info Tent.

The programs below require pre-registration. Click the links below to register on WebReg.

Some of the programs below require pre-registration. Click the links below to register on WebReg. All Talks & Tours start at the Info Tent.

Claire Davis

Claire Davis (She/ They) grew up on the unceded, occupied and spiritual lands of the Coast Salish peoples of the Musquem, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish Nations in the area naturalized as Burnaby. 

Claire uses their diverse practices in poetry, mixed media and performance arts with her fascination and wonder of natural systems through the lens of aesthetics, and biology. As an artist in residence at Deer Lake in 2021, Claire began to explore the settled histories of Deer Lake and the many ways people build their evolving connection with this place for the spoken word installation, Dear Lake: Letters to the Lake. These connections drew her to consider how systems in nature can inform understandings of the construction and destruction of systems in community. This idea brought them to look more symbolically at the encroachment of introduced species and their affect on resources in their environment. In RECIPROCITEA, Davis attempts to overlay many of these intersecting ideas for the ways one can disrupt systems of colonization. 

Claire's poetic style often searches the space before or after thresholds, and within the liminal longings of human experience. Relying heavily on metaphor and stripped moments, they investigate a generative and possibly disruptive understanding of memory-keeping through place-based arts. 

Her workshop will look at invasive plant species as a place of inspiration for poetry and decolonization in an interactive field guide process using shifted perspectives and some fun. 

Siobhan D’Souza

Siobhan D'Souza is a creative young entrepreneur from the Fraser Valley in Beautiful British Columbia.

She has used her creative skills to create incredible fashion art using upcycled materials and a variety mediums including fresh florals and thermoplast. Shiverz has collected a fashion portfolio of her unique designs and concepts  photographed by some of Canada most talented photographers. 

Many of these gorgeous photographs have been published in local and international magazines, blogs and social media sites.

Pierre Leichner

Pierre Leichner left a thirty-five-year career as an academic psychiatrist for that of an artist. This desire was fueled by a lifelong dream and also by his dismay at the direction our health care system has been taking.

His practice has now evolved to be a composite of socially engaged art, environmental art, and installation art. Pierre uses various mediums as needed to explore an issue and because of his interest in creating multi-sensory works to better understand and communicate.

Nickie Lewis

Nickie Lewis is a visual artist who currently specializes in creating organic eco-sculptures using sticks, moss, and other plants. She aims to use her art to help educate people about the impact we have on our environment, and to help spread a little earthly magic into unexpected places.

Brenna Maag

Brenna Maag is a settler artist living on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied territories of the Scowlitz, Matsqui, Kwantlen, and Leqá:mel First Nations. Aside from making art, she spends her time hassling her family to go outside, knitting, puttering in her garden, and watching the chickadees eat from the sunflowers. She is very grateful for the support of her ‘village’ in helping her make art.

Alyssa Schwann

Alyssa Schwann is a designer and environmental artist with projects and professional experience in North America, Britain, and the Netherlands. In Europe Schwann worked in Rotterdam for several years as a project leader and designer in the office of West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, with a focus on parks, gardens and public space, including the high-profile urban design projects such as Toronto’s Central Waterfront and Governors Island, in New York City. Prior to West 8, she lived in London, England and worked for Chris Blandford Associates on large-scale urban design and infrastructural projects, environmental impact assessments, and historically listed parks and gardens.

Alex Stewart

Alex Stewart is a Fraser Valley-based environmental artist and muralist specializing in stencil art. Studying at the University of the Fraser Valley, he received a Diploma of Visual Arts in 2011 and has continued to evolve his practice since then.

Stewart’s work focuses on creating a narrative for the continued efforts toward sustainability and environmental preservation. He creates in natural settings such as the forests of British Columbia in order to humanize our environment. The result is a merging of street art and plein air depicting soft, ephemeral female figures interacting with nature. Stewart’s public mural work also reflects these values by bringing the natural world into the urban.

The programs below require pre-registration. Click the links below to register on WebReg.

Some of the programs below require pre-registration. Click the links below to register on WebReg. All Talks & Tours start at the Info Tent.