How can Cap students learn from Rosen, get in touch with the forest of our campus, and become stronger artists in turn
Kate Henderson (she/they) // Crew Writer
Lera Kim // Illustrator
In the various environments on campus where one is constantly measuring success academically, artistically, or even personally, it can be easy to be overwhelmed. Considering Capilano University offers a beautiful outdoor space to ground oneself, it brings to question how students can better appreciate our forests in a way that can recharge them in all facets.
Carmen Rosen, an artist based in East Vancouver, harnesses this energy, learning to flourish in multiple art forms as a festival director and creator. With her annual Moon Festival, also known as Harvest Fair, returning for its 22nd year this September, this feels like the perfect opportunity to learn from Rosen’s balance to understand how we can all uniquely find harmony in our own goals with the natural tools of our campus.
Rosen started her university career in 1978 with a degree in Art History from the University of British Columbia. During this time, she went from having an appreciation for art, to learning about art and eventually shelving books about art at her school’s fine arts library. However, upon developing tendonitis from this routine, she realized she’d rather be getting her hands on making the art itself.
This led Rosen to pursuing a diploma at Emily Carr, providing the opportunity to study in an exchange program in Sapporo, Japan. When asked about her career ventures after university, she detailed an approach that would lead her to such wide success: “I remember early in my career—creating this three-tiered Japanese marionette—and to share this, a performer would have to stilt walk. So, I decided to learn how to stilt walk and, well, apparently there are very few stilt walkers, so I made my puppets and also stilt walked.” Rosen described this as what led her to create Mortal Coil Performance Society. It was this attitude of being able to “fall from new skill to new skill” that allowed Rosen to support her goals as well as discover new goals.
Paired with Rosen’s adaptability, her approach is also grounded in the value of sustainability. When studying at Emily Carr, Rosen discovered she was “disturbed by all the toxic materials used to make art.” Rosen began by collecting trash in an abandoned warehouse, hoping to reshape people’s way of seeing what had been thrown away. Later in her career, in combination with her stilt-walking puppetry community within the festival community, Rosen began a sustainable festival community through the creation of Still Moon Arts Society (SMAS). With SMAS, the help of the City of Vancouver, and Rosen’s patented “fun(d)raising” she was able to create an artistic site along the Renfrew Ravine in East Vancouver. This site includes everything from gardens growing fibres and natural dyes, to hand-sculpted sheds, “I try to make everything on-site artistic, even something as simple as a shed” Rosen shares as she explains their choice to light their shed with glasswork buried in its walls.
Rosen has mended East Vancouver’s nature in artwork, expanding sustainability in community with nature and with each other; Rosen’s approach is also based on the importance of connecting the community to these spaces. She insists this not only starts by “having free places where people can gather,” but extends to having linguistically accessible places of gathering—the community’s shared art being its own language.
On top of creating this shared space, Rosen coordinates events with SMAS such as the upcoming Moon Festival this September 14th and 21st. “On the 14th we have multiple weaving stations, with creators sending profits to families in Guatemala.” Rosen further connects the neighbours of East Vancouver by working with the local high school students to giving university students like Jasmine Garcha a space in the Renfrew Ravine for her own art collective—Crow’s Nest.
Not only does Rosen encourage others to learn through a firsthand approach: “stumble from thing to thing, follow your bliss then things happen.” She also shows an incredibly admirable warm connection with nature and those around her. When asked how Capilano University students can start this practice, Rosen pauses, “Those little moments of breath— oh wow, this is my life and I get to be here, I’m just going to take 5 seconds right now. Making time to just be there.” This could be our greatest tool, not only on campus but in our exciting future.