ORCAR

The Vision

“What does it mean to transform the machine that warms the ocean into the creature that depends on it?”

The Orcar takes a decommissioned car — an icon of carbon emissions and personal isolation — and remakes it through steel welding, sculptural fabrication, and lighting design into a large-scale orca whale that audiences can enter, explore, and inhabit. The work is grounded in a specific place: Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) territory, where the Southern Resident orca population is endangered and the car-to-whale metamorphosis carries ecological and cultural weight.

A steel-welded armature extends beyond the vehicle chassis to define the orca’s form — dorsal fin, tail flukes, rounded rostrum. At night, LED lighting traces the orca’s outline from below while the interior glows with shifting blues and greens. Visitors enter through the body into a gathering space with ambient soundscape and responsive lighting that shifts with presence.

How It’s Built

Orcar is built collectively through Create Makerspace Society’s Create Public Art program — a 3-month intensive where up to 30 participants collaborate in mentored Friday co-making sessions. Emerging and experienced artists, youth and adults, Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members work side by side, developing real fabrication skills while contributing to a shared large-scale sculpture.

Summer 2026 Festival Tour