Join our artists in residence, Rain Cabana-Boucher and Natalie Purschwitz, in the studio for an in-person chat about the work they have undertaken during their time at Griffin!

Natalie Purschwitz is an artist living and working on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) people. Her research is propelled by material exploration drawing on modes of making that include collecting, accumulating, arranging, editing, and writing. She is curious about the ways in which the landscape is shaped by humans and nonhumans, through systems of organization, networks of support and ruptures within these systems. By reconfiguring everyday objects, elemental substances and other lively combinations, she attempts to create conditions for material events. 

Rain Cabana-Boucher, is a Michif/British settler interdisciplinary artist raised in treaty 6 territory, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her family has historic ties to the Michif communities of St-François-Xavier, St. Boniface, and St. Louis, Saskatchewan. She currently lives and works on the stolen land of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, and xwməθkwəy̓əm Nations. Cabana-Boucher is a recent recipient of the Takao Tanabe prize for emerging British Columbia Painters and the First Peoples Individual Artist grant. Cabana-Boucher explores the autobiographical in relation to place and politics; seeking to navigate the complexities of identity within environments that are rapidly changing under systematic pressures.