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In a Salish Weaving Workshop hosted in June 2025 by the Slow Fashion Cluster, the potential to find common ground between the re-creation of wool production on Vancouver Island, and the creation of local and sustainable supplies of wool was a fledgling idea. With the support of the Public Humanities Hub Graduate Fellowship and the Slow Fashion Cluster, that idea became a one-day experimental hands-on workshop hosted at UBC FLEET Mobile Studio in the Campus as a Living Lab funded Fabric of Campus Fibre Garden, on August 5, 2026.
The Material Flows workshop created a space for a small group of Coast Salish textile producers and Vancouver Island Fibreshed members to advance local materials knowledge and begin building a shared knowledge base of some of the sheep's wool fleece types available on Vancouver Island. The project builds on existing Fibreshed models and aims to form new relationships between wool producers and consumers within the region, beginning with Coast Salish textile makers who hold the knowledge of their local and ancient Indigenous textile making practices of this unceded territory. The Material Flows project aims to continue connecting with more Salish textile makers into the future.
Project Leads: Alison Ariss (UBC PhD Candidate in Art History), Meredith Martin (Artist, weaver and VIF member)
Participants: Elder May Sam (Tsartlip First Nation), Atheana Picha (Kwantlen First Nation), Amy Crook, Colleen Hunter, Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa, Germaine Koh
Assistant and Photographer: Karen Zhou
Funding: Public Humanities Hub Graduate Fellowship
Matching funds: Slow Fashion Research Cluster