FLEET: Granville Island

Granville Island, Chain and Forge Plaza

1425 Anderson St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3R5

We are excited to have Kay Slater join FLEET: Granville Island for October 2024. During Slater’s residency at FLEET: Granville Island, they will explore creative access and wayfinding within public and small making spaces. They plan to employ low-fi and AR technology to test wayfinding and spatial mapping on the island and within the trailer. Central to this exploration, they will design a prototype exhibition within the FLEET container, focusing on making the space accessible and creatively functional for future projects. Concurrently, Slater will engage in their radical silence project, practicing non-verbal communication and reflecting on the experience of navigating and existing public spaces without relying on spoken language.

Visual Description:

Kay is a white, middle-aged person with back-length hair the colour of wet West Coast sand. Their hair is shaved at the sides and back, and they often wear it up and away from their face. They have cow-brown eyes, a triple-pierced nose, double-pierced lip, and large, rosy cheeks. They have a yellowed, tea-stained, teeth-exposing smile that crinkles the corner of their eyes. They are of average to large build and stand 5'6 or 168 cm. Their figure reads as femme, and their clothing is neutral and casual in colour, fabric and style. Kay's typically fingerspells their name in a quick cursive K-A-Y.

Bio

Kay Slater is a multidisciplinary artist, accessibility consultant and arts worker.  As a consultant, they work directly with artists and organizations to build accessibility in at the planning stage and to incorporate sustainable, grassroots strategies that support evolution in artistic presentation. Their work is rooted in anti-oppression practices, and they employ open-source and community-engaged approaches to support ongoing knowledge transfer with makers and creators at all stages of their careers. They have been the Exhibitions manager and co-founder of the Accessible Exhibitions and Public Events (AEPE) project at grunt gallery for the past five years. They are a proud volunteer and social coordinator at Queer ASL, and have completed the Rick Hansen Foundation’s Accessibility Certification program. They are a co-founder and active member of The Papercut Arcade artist collective. Kay is passionate about sharing knowledge with the wider arts community.  Kay is queer and hard of hearing. They use They/Their/Theirs pronouns as they fumble and learn as an uninvited “guest” across Coast Salish territory.

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Image (above): Photo by Kay, 2022, Surrey Art Gallery. Image description: Kay, a white person with grey and black hair shaved on the sides and otherwise struggling to be contained in a ponytail, stands with their arms wide, looking down into the camera. They stand in front of a projected image of water and flowing lines which appear across their skin and on the white wall behind them. They wear a white mask that takes up a half of their face. Across their chest is the green strap from their messenger bag, laden with buttons and pins.

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