Germaine Koh

Drawing Connections at Vancouver Art Book Fair. I have some existing drawings but also have been making new ones and sometimes giving them to the people. @vancouverartbookfair #drawingconnections

Fabric of Campus Fibre Garden and FLEET Mobile Artist Studios — Open Call for Proposals We invite the UBC community—including students, staff, researchers, departments, residents, partners, and beyond—to submit proposals to engage with the Fabric of Campus Fibre Garden and/or FLEET Mobile Artist Studio. This unique public space is a dynamic research and learning site where textiles, agriculture, traditional land practices, and creative practice intersect. We seek creative and/or community-engaged proposals to activate the space with urban agriculture and land-based activities, slow fashion and sustainable textile practices, public space innovation, knowledge exchange, and interdisciplinary experimentation. The site, part of UBC's Campus as a Living Lab program, is a collaboration between UBC Campus + Community Planning and the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory, with the FLEET Studio managed by Other Sights for Artists’ Projects. The Fibre Garden and FLEET Mobile Studio will be at UBC’s Point Grey Campus, on unceded, ancestral xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territory, from May 2026 through at least April 2028. The site is located off the University Blvd. trolley-bus loop, between Gordon B. Shrum and Wesbrook buildings. Projects can begin as early as July 2026. POSSIBLE ACTIVATIONS: Propose a short term or intermittent, seasonal, or longer-term project using any or a combination of the studio, the research plots, and the open green space. ON-SITE INFO SESSIONS: Wednesday, May 27, 11am-1pm Thursday, May 28, 4-6pm DEADLINE: June 15, 2026, noon APPLY AT link in @fibregardenubc bio

Making an appearance at the @vancouverartbookfair this weekend, with my “League Play Book” artist book co-edited with @simonadolinska , some trading-card-like drawings from “Drawing Connections,” some of the last remaining face masks from the “Crowd Shyness” project, and some UBC student printmaking work to be revealed.

I finished processing my flax from the past two years and am going to make it into a T-shirt but am trying to decide whether to weave it or knit it. As tests, that woven swatch was 1-ply woven at 12 threads per inch and shrunk in finishing to about 14. The knit swatch was 2-ply on 3.5 mm needles. If I knit, it might need to be a crop top or tank. Stats: this is about 930 yards, from two 75 sq.ft harvests—though one of them was very poor. UK researcher Zoe Gilbertson figured you need about 13 sq.m (about 130 sq.ft) of flax to make a pair of jeans, so I’m getting half that yield. I’m not good at processing yet—but we are starting a research project including small-scale machinery for flax-to-linen processing.

If I have to spend the weekend writing grant proposals, there could be worse settings. Note carefully calibrated rain line.

Here’s our new Fabric of Campus Fibre Garden at UBC. This week we are racing to get in a few test beds for flax, which prefers cool weather, and the surrounding area will soon be prepared with larger research plots for more flax, milkweed, nettle, dogbane, and other fibre plants. Thanks to the Campus as a Living Lab program and to project collaborators Campus and Community Planning. We also have great community and research partners EartHand Gleaners, Karla Sandwith, Kathy Dunster, and @mackenziekellyfrere involved.

A collaboration with the Slow Fashion: Circular Textiles, Sustainable Fibre research cluster at UBC saw ECU students, alums and faculty contribute to a series of projects exploring how textiles can be made more sustainable. @slowfashionseason brought students together with artists, scholars, researchers, architects, engineers and industry partners to work on the complex problems of sustainability in textiles and clothing and share knowledge with the public. “Participating in Slow Fashion Season reinforced that I’ve learned all these practical skills — I can stitch and sew and build — but more importantly, I have a design sense. That I can trust both my technical abilities and my aesthetic eye,” says fourth-year Industrial Design student Audrey Allanson (@made_by_aud ). Audrey was among the students and alums who collaborated to create a series of garments from sails donated by ECU faculty members, which she and her peers modelled on the runway during the Slow Fashion Show at @moa_ubc . Slow Fashion Season was created by interdisciplinary artist, curator and UBC faculty member Germaine Koh (@germkoh ) with support from ECU faculty member and @MaterialMatters.ecu cofounder Hélène Day Fraser and ECU faculty member Heather Young. Click the link in bio to learn more about this extraordinary initiative! 📸 Photos 1, 2, 7-16 by Yin Mei; 3-6 by Perrin Grauer. Image Credits: 1. (L-R) Shelly Kositsky, Yuki Xiang, Jonah Randell, Sophie Ryznar at the UBC Slow Fashion Season event. 2. (L-R) Audrey Allanson, Tenaya Fogelman, Saanvi Bhat (top), Emilia Abundis, Eden Eisses. 3. Tenaya Fogelman and Audrey Allanson create garments from sails during a design charrette at ECU. 4. Tenaya Fogelman works on a garment made from donated sails. 5. (L-R): Karen Morales, Yuki Xiang and Pengmin (Adora) Xu create garments from repurposed sails at ECU. 6. (L-R): Audrey Allanson, Jonah Randell and Tenaya Fogelman collaborate on a garment made from repurposed sails. 7. Artist, curator and Slow Fashion Season founder Germaine Koh on the runway during the Slow Fashion Show. 8-16. ECU students on the Slow Fashion Show runway.

Slow Fashion Season Models Sustainable Future for Clothing Design APRIL 22, 2026 BY: PERRIN GRAUER "In collaboration with UBC, ECU students, alums and faculty members helped ignite the second annual series of events sharing research, design and artwork with the public. "A collaboration with the Slow Fashion: Circular Textiles, Sustainable Fibre research cluster at the University of British Columbia (UBC) saw students, alums and faculty at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU) contribute to a series of projects exploring how textiles can be made more sustainable. "Slow Fashion Season 2026 brought students together with artists, scholars, researchers, architects, engineers and industry partners to work on the complex problems of sustainability in textiles and clothing and share knowledge with the public. “'Participating in Slow Fashion Season reinforced that I’ve learned all these practical skills — I can stitch and sew and build — but more importantly, I have a design sense. That I can trust both my technical abilities and my aesthetic eye,' says fourth-year Industrial Design student Audrey Allanson. "Audrey was among the students and alums who collaborated to create a series of garments from sails donated by ECU faculty members Eugenia Bertulis, Laura Kozak and Bonne Zabolotney, which she and her peers then modelled on the runway during the Slow Fashion Show at the Museum of Anthropology.[...] Read more at the link in our bio or at https://ecuad.ca/slow-fashion-season-models-sustainable-future-clothing-design/ Photo by Yin Mei @melted_epiphanies

Rally caps working at Cs’ game for team end-of-term outing.

Down that well that we drilled is the waters of Skwachàys, to be brought back to the surface at New St. Paul’s Hospital.

Hey! Guess what? My work is on the cover and I’m published in the latest edition of Journal of Canadian Studies, a special issue focused on ethics in public art, edited by Analays Álvarez Hernández and Laurent Vernet. It's unusual for me to go on for this many thousands of words, but it was an opportunity to tie together disparate topics that are dear to me: play and experimentation, building and making, community and non-specialist effort, and the code-switching needed to move between disciplines. Here’s a taste of the beginning and if you want to read "Out of Love and Desire: DIY Agency and Amateur Effort in the Public Realm," I'll send you a copy or a link, just message me. Other authors include buddies Kari Cwynar and Lois Klassen. Featured or cited or mentioned or illustrated in my piece are folks such as @infravert_art_et_structure @jaderude @wolinoj @the_blue_cabin @fleet_mobile_studios @simcicarchitecturestudio @hemlock_micro_studio The issue: /toc/jcs/59/3. [OOPS - of course the first thing I see in these screenshots is a big ole typo. Sigh.]

With @slowfashionseason wrapped, we’ve also arrived at the point in the semester when it’s time to look at extracting the fibres that make the thread that makes the fabric that makes the clothing that touches us every day. We have been working backwards from most to least familiar in the new class on fibre materials and methods that I developed at @ahvaubc this year. That means diving into processing my flax harvest from last year, and planting this year’s. But this year there’s more! Just announced: operations, academic and community partners and I are launching a new fibre garden on UBC campus, part of the Campus as a Living Lab program. There we will grow fields of flax, as well as other bast fibre and dye plants, to make hyper local textiles and clothes. Much more soon!